Ron "Let The Uninsured Die" Paul's 2008 Campaign Strategist Died Uninsured. Also, Here's A Drunk Guy.

Wolf Blitzer's cornering of Ron Paul on the rights of Americans in regards to health care has now become legendary: he asked, and Ron seemed to agree, whether society should let uninsured sick people just die.  While Ron's position on the matter seemed shocking, what was even more sickening and disappointing was the audience, who shouted "Yes!" and burst into applause.

The incident has had repercussions through the GOP, with a Huntsman staffer exclaiming that the incident made her "sick and sad" for the Republican Party, while Rick Perry admitted himself, after being raked over the coals for a few of his more liberal policies, that he was "taken aback" by the crowd's reaction.  

Ron Paul, who is a medical doctor, took what many feel is a callous stance, stating that it would be up to churches and charities to take care of people who don't have the appropriate insurance to deal with a life threatening illness.  Before he said that, unfortunately, he should have thought back to his own past, when his campaign chairman-- his uninsured campaign chairman-- died of pneumonia complications.  Because he was uninsured, Kent Snyder (who is widely credited with being the man who pushed Ron Paul to run in the first place), left his mother a whopping $400,000 medical bill, leading some to express shock that the campaign didn't have a health plan.

“I can’t believe he didn’t have health insurance,” said one political activist who read about Snyder’s unpaid medical bills in a story published last month in the Wall Street Journal. “I can’t believe that Ron Paul didn’t give him health insurance,” said the activist, who asked not to be identified.

As far as we know, charities have only covered a fraction of the cost of Snyder's hospitalization and subsequent death, leaving the rest to the responsibility of his family.

At least we can say he is consistent, as he didn't lift a finger to financially help the Snyder family.  However, one wonders-- if he's such a fan of private insurance companies, why didn't he have a private health plan for his campaign employees?

In much lighter Ron Paul news, this Paulitician was arrested for drunk driving and spent the whole time shouting "Ron Paul 2012 First Amendment!"  You have to give him this: he knows how to keep idiots on-message.

"Are You Saying That Society Should Let Him Die?"

Ron Paul, during tonight's debate on CNN, suggesting that if someone doesn't have insurance due to the exorbitant cost of premiums, we should let them die if unforeseen medical catastrophes ensue:


The "YES!" and applause on Wolf Blitzer's shocked question turns my stomach.

UPDATE:  Alan Grayson, a congressman who famously said two years ago "Republicans want sick people to die quickly," had this to say to the Huffington Post:

My speech was about the fact I had been listening to the Republicans for months, and they literally had no plan to help all those millions of people who can’t see a doctor when they’re sick. So I said, in sort of a wry manner, that their plan was "don’t get sick." All I really wanted to do was just call attention to the stark absence of a Republican plan. But Fox, trying to take the heat off Joe Wilson and Sarah Palin I guess, transmogrified that into a charge that Republicans want to kill people. 

What you saw tonight is something much more sinister than not having a healthcare plan. It's sadism, pure and simple. It's the same impulse that led people in the Coliseum to cheer when the lions ate the Christians. And that seems to be where we are heading -- bread and circuses, without the bread. The world that Hobbes wrote about -- "the war of all against all."

I agree, it seems that this farce is quickly devolving into nothing more than a circus without substance.

Huntsman On Romney And Health Care

New GOP candidate John Huntsman, the former governor of Utah, is now blasting Mitt Romney's credibility on healthcare.  Which is funny, because "Romneycare," enacted during Mittens' stint as governor in Massachusetts, has reduced the uninsured rate in MA to 1.9%, compared to the whopping 14% in Huntsman's home state of Utah.

"The question was, when someone who passed and signed that particular law is talking about free market health care, do they have credibility? Otherwise, governors can do whatever they want to do, whatever the aspirations of the people in their state dictate, they can move in that direction. I think the answer was, he would have little credibility talking about market-based health care plans having signed onto that."

I was hoping Huntsman's stance on civil unions would mean that he would be willing to run as a moderate, but now those hopes have kind of been dashed.  The poor guy is clearly just yet another wingnut.