RICK SANTORUM AT HIS CRUELEST

Republican presidential hopeful, Rick Santorum, was at his callous best today when asked by a young kid what he planned to do to make drugs more affordable. Santorum responded with well-rehearsed "double-talk", but his answer was clear and unsympathetic - not a damn thing!

I labeled Santorum's response well-rehearsed double talk because his initial response was to attack the boy who asked the question and the boy's family. You be the judge. Here is what Santorum said:

"People have no problem going out and buying an iPod for $900. But paying $200 for a drug they have a problem with - that keeps you alive. Why? Because we've been conditioned in thinking that health care is something we should get and not pay for."

Now, let's examine Santorum's response more closely. He was essentially saying that the reason people can't afford expensive drugs is because they waste money on other areas of their lives and expect something for nothing. Santorum had no knowledge of the financial situation of that young kid's family, but his automatic assumption was that if the family couldn't afford drugs to keep a child alive, it was the family's fault. That sounds cruel to me. Then again, that's Santorum.

The mom in that family yelled out that she was going bankrupt just to keep her kid breathing. Santorum was unmoved. He could afford to be. His kids get the best government funded health care available because Santorum was a former U.S. Senator and that's a perk he gets for the rest of his life. Talk about getting something for nothing.

Santorum responded to the mom saying as follows:

"Look, I want your son and everybody to have the opportunity to stay alive on much-needed drugs. But the bottom line is, we have companies with the incentives to make those drugs. And if they don't have the incentives to make those drugs, your son won't be alive and lot's of other people in this country won't be alive. We either believe in markets or we don't."

For Santorum, mainataining unfettered freedom in the pharmaceutical marketplace is more important than maintaining affordable access to life-saving drugs for everyone. In his view, drugs are a luxury for those who can afford to pay the going rate. For those who can't - well, tough!

Rick Santorum likes to fancy himself as a pro-life crusader, but his bottom line is the pharmaceutical industries' bottom line, and when forced to choose between drug company profits and the life of a deathly ill child, he believes that life is cheaper than the cost of a pill. That may be his idea of family values, but they're not mine.