Audience at tea party debate cheers leaving uninsured to die (not really, that's just what big media wants you to believe)

[Dave]

I'm not sure I've seen a news story more misrepresented by the media then this one in quite a long time. What was said and what the media said was said are 2 different things here. First they make it sound like the whole audience was was cheering the thought of a uninsured person dieing when in fact it was more like 3 or 4 people. Then they try to make Ron Paul sound like he's ok with the death as well when that wasn't what he was saying. I'm not a overly big fan of Ron Paul but in this case, he got the short end of the stick.

 

If you're uninsured and on the brink of death, that's apparently a laughing matter to some audience members at last night's tea party Republican presidential debate.

Texas Rep. Ron Paul, a doctor, was asked a hypothetical question by CNN host Wolf Blitzer about how society should respond if a healthy 30-year-old man who decided against buying health insurance suddenly goes into a coma and requires intensive care for six months. Paul--a fierce limited-government advocate-- said it shouldn't be the government's responsibility. "That's what freedom is all about, taking your own risks," Paul said and was drowned out by audience applause as he added, "this whole idea that you have to prepare to take care of everybody …"

"Are you saying that society should just let him die?" Blitzer pressed Paul. And that's when the audience got involved.

 Several loud cheers of "yeah!" followed by laughter could be heard in the Expo Hall at the Florida State Fairgrounds in response to Blitzer's question.

Paul disagreed with the audience on that front. "No," he responded, noting he practiced medicine before Medicaid when churches took care of medical costs--a comment that drew wide audience applause. "We never turned anybody away from the hospital."

Paul voiced support for legalizing alternative health care and argued that the reason medical costs have skyrocketed is that individuals have stopped taking personal responsibility for their health care.

Though Paul spoke to the larger issues of health care and government-backed health insurance--both pivotal in the 2012 election--the audience's reaction has overshadowed the substance of the exchange between the candidates. And the day after the event, Texas Gov. Rick Perry offered his own criticism of the audience response.

"I was a bit taken aback by that myself," Perry told NBC News and the Miami Herald of the audience reaction after appearing at a breakfast fundraiser in Tampa Tuesday morning.

"We're the party of life. We ought to be coming up with ways to save lives."

The campaigns for Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann did not immediately respond to The Ticket's request for comment.

Conservative Andrew Sullivan writing for The Daily Beast's The Dish Tuesday noted that the United States obligates society to save someone in an emergency room. "America, moreover, has a law on the books that makes it a crime not to treat and try to save a human being who walks into an emergency room. So we have already made that collective decision and if the GOP wants to revisit it, they can," Sullivan wrote.

Sullivan also decried the audience reaction, writing: "Maybe a tragedy like the death of a feckless twentysomething is inevitable if we are to restrain healthcare costs. But it is still a tragedy. It is not something a decent person cheers."

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/audience-tea-party-debate-cheers...

[XLFD]

Let's remember this was the "CNN/Tea Party" debate (what an unlikely coalition), so we may presume the few 'yeahs' and cheers could have easily been a CNN contingent close to the microphones cheering Wulf's faulty conclusion which amounted to: "so Dr. Paul are you just gonna say screw the Hippocratic Oath and let them die?" 

If you see the extended link, Dr. Ron Paul nails that question with his usual consistent argument.  The whole audience cheers his eventual answer.

[AQUAMAN]

I've seen Wulfy Wolf do this stunt before. And I really don't count him as a high quality journalist, even though his credentials and position is overblown. The few hecklers that spewed a few yeahs, are not representative of the Ron Paul followers, nor most Tea Party members, nor Paul's own words. Media twisting and spinning the truth is what keeps Paul from winning the nominations of present and past, not his character and true intentions. This seems to be an agenda by the leftists, to distract from the issues that Americans need to hear and decide on for the country's future.

[Dave]

Why people want to label a whole group by the actions of a very few is just plain silly. If we did that, we'd have to label the democrats as racists since it was the democrats that didn't want anything to do really with the civil rights movement... and in there case it wasn't just a few whack nuts... it was quite a few of them.

[XLFD]

Now, Dave.  Labelling a whole group for the actions of a few would be stereotyping.  Democrats just don't do that, at least that's what they tell all the beer-drinking, dog-whipping, chain-smoking Republicans.

[Dave]

Dat be wat maks dem the smrt oones I soppose.... by thee way, who gets thee dirty smelly hippies?