Alan Grayson Blasts Tea Party Debate Audience's Reaction To Health Care Question: 'It's Sadism'

The jubilant shouts of members of the GOP audience encouraging the death of a hypothetical uninsured man bring to mind the 2009 House floor speech delivered by former Florida Rep. Alan Grayson, in which he famously charged: "The Republicans want you to die quickly if you get sick." Members of the crowd at the Tampa debate agree with Grayson.

CNN's Wolf Blitzer, the event's moderator, posed the hypothetical question to Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas): What do you tell a guy who is sick, goes into a coma and doesn't have health insurance? Who pays for his coverage? "Are you saying society should just let him die?" Wolf Blitzer asked.

"Yeah!" several members of the crowd yelled out.

HuffPost asked Grayson what he thought of the crowd cheering for the death of the uninsured man. He writes:

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."

WATCH: Grayson's famous comments on the House floor:

Comments

[RC Hindle]

09:42 AM on 10/24/2011

I am shocked by the lack of compassion displayed by the attendees. I wonder if they were in the same situation described, would they just say "let me die"? Not likely, I think.

[Tammy Garnett]

02:50 PM on 09/20/2011

OMG what have we become? I am so sick in my heart about this.

[lamardreeson]

05:00 AM on 09/19/2011

We cannot be surprised at these statements by the elitist-minded tea-party members.
he truth is so far removed from the exceptions of reality, that they cannot be ignored, yet they canot be considered in any serious manner, to maintain even a small sense of viability in the world to come.
The conspiracies that they have manufactured around our current president, are obviously based in a fear that is primal in its nature. Their fears should be directed toward the very people with whom they rally. I have never been shot by words, but a person with a gun, has a better than fair chance of pulling it off.

[Jen Batra]

09:24 PM on 09/18/2011

no socialism!

[jack Winn]

11:54 AM on 10/07/2011

Exactly. Manufacture your own drugs, autos, etc. Your life expectancy will be around the Neanderthal range, which is as Ma Nature intends.

[RC Hindle]

09:44 AM on 10/24/2011

You do the same. (highly unlikely).

[yankhadenuf]

08:07 AM on 09/18/2011

Grayson's analogy on sadism is scary because it's spot on - this IS the mentality of Tea Party

[Jen Batra]

09:20 PM on 09/18/2011

THATS THE WAY IT SHOLD BE...CHURCHES, PRIVATE, ETC....NO SOCIALISM! IM PROUD TO BE IN THE TEA PARTY

[Tammy Garnett]

02:52 PM on 09/20/2011

I pray that you or your family members wont become seriously ill. However, I think that be the only way for you to fully comprehend.

[jack Winn]

11:49 AM on 10/07/2011

Is that the way your family works?

What are you willing to pay for as a community expense?

Nations that focus on common economies are going to overwhelm people who can't learn how to work together. It seems to have something to do with intelligence as helping adaptability.

[Vulka]

11:08 PM on 09/15/2011

I'd like to see a church that will pay, say, for someone's heart surgery, ICU stay and subsequent recovery. Or a neighbor who will shoulder a responsibility for a cancer patient's ongoing medical bills. Or a charity taking on a child with a congenital problem who will need a lifelong care.

When a charitable organization or a private donor helps an uninsured individual in need of a complex and expensive medical treatment it is usually a rare and newsworthy occurrence. And this clown thinks it should be a norm. Yeah, good luck with that idea.

[yankhadenuf]

08:21 AM on 09/18/2011

During the presidenti­al campaign a very NICE Ron Paul fan told me this, and I told him that I have adult son with Autism Spectrum Disorder on SSI, is he really expecting my developmen­tally disabled son to go around every month and beg for the same amount from charities just to survive? He seemed totally stunned at what I said and at a loss for answers and apologetic for my son's circumstan­ces. There are a lot of good regular folks sucked into this "Libertari­an" thing (anarchy for the wealthy & corporatio­ns), it's like when people you love are tricked by a scam, you want to shake them by the shoulders- barring that you just have to keep saying REAL EXAMPLES over and over and over again, basically verbally bombard them with the truth, don't let them get the upperhand with nonsensica­l rhetoric, their brains have been hijacked, but you still LOVE them.

[jack Winn]

11:51 AM on 10/07/2011

The real problem is finding ways to make people as self-sufficient as possible, including the disabled on SSI. Find a way for them to contribute as part of the group.
And don't do things that result in more disabled people.

[Jen Batra]

09:20 PM on 09/18/2011

THATS THE WAY IT SHOLD BE...CHURCHES, PRIVATE, ETC....NO SOCIALISM! IT IS THE NORM FOR CHURCHES, FAMILIES, ETC TO HELP

[Vulka]

09:49 PM on 09/18/2011

If its such a norm why don't they help? What's stopping them now? Usually, if a church or a charity foots the bill for someone's medical treatment its on the news. And I don't see those news events happening nearly as much as they should be.

The point is not industrial­ized country should be without a well developed federally set up support system for its poor and underprivi­leged. Otherwise too many risk the chance of falling through the cracks. Do you want to see people starving in the streets and children dying because no one had a chance to get to them? Or didn't have funds available in time? Because they were forgotten or just too ill to seek help? Or didn't know where to turn? You want to see hospitals turning sick people away en masse? That's what's happening in 3rd world countries. How will we be better if we do away with our social support system?

[Redwood Eagle]

10:50 PM on 09/15/2011

Alan Grayson for President!

[Darlie Brewster]

09:15 PM on 09/15/2011

Oh and by the way Graysn was right, the GOP are the party of death.

[babyjesussaysso]

03:50 PM on 09/15/2011

Lions eating christians...hmmm

[mspender]

08:02 PM on 09/15/2011

Republican "Christians"....mmm... don't taste real...

[LSP]

11:33 AM on 09/15/2011

Washington Post's Eugene Robinson summed it up the other day on MSNBC when he was asked about the reaction of the audience to Wolf Blitzer's question. He called it "immoral".

I think that pretty much sums up the entire Republican party these days. And the worst part of it is, they know we know it and they don't even care.

[jondekonkeroo]

02:55 PM on 09/15/2011

I don't like the rick perry association. they brown shirt lights may have found their hit/ler light. the bloodlust reactions send up a number of vivid warning flags. we don't need that starting up here and every month it gets worse.

what the right hates most about grayson is he imitates their own demagoguery - but only the left can sense the irony.

[ls263]

10:39 AM on 09/15/2011

So do republicans favor no abortions ever, but if the baby was to be born with a fatal health problem and the parents have no insurance should that baby die after it is born-say the next day? Is this what they think should happen? Unbelievable.

[LouiseM]

05:57 PM on 09/15/2011

That's because the abortion is the *parents'* choice. The baby who dies the day after birth is *God's* choice.

It's all about what the Heavenly Father wants. That's the way they want this country run - by what they believe the Judeo-Christian God (or the Christian God, in the case of abortion) wants.

It's odd that they revere the Constitution so much, because that document was all about designing a nation ruled by what the people wanted. God was left out.

[madgrrl]

10:39 PM on 09/15/2011

and it was anti corporate - what happened to that?

[Tammy Garnett]

02:57 PM on 09/20/2011

Sorry but I think Christianity is made of lies, people like you wanting people like me to walk your walk. Sorry, witch burning days are gone you christian right people need to take your head out of the toilet.

[Jen Batra]

09:23 PM on 09/18/2011

IDIOT abortion is murder....people should take care of their own health

[GEORGE W TUSH]

09:48 AM on 09/15/2011

Based on the Republican debates so far, I would not trust any of these candidates in an entry-level job at Staples.

[ClubStyle DJ]

10:21 AM on 09/15/2011

"so far" ????

Try "from day 1"

[mspender]

07:44 PM on 09/15/2011

be nice to Staples employees.

[Crystal McCree]

08:39 PM on 09/15/2011

Exactly! Those employees have been very helpful to me! Please leave them out of it.

[OGigi]

08:42 AM on 09/15/2011

Again, the ones pointing the finger about death panels are death panels. Well, not panels exactly, would be policy, would not need no stinking panels.

[OGigi]

08:38 AM on 09/15/2011

Sadism for sure, by defintion.
But, we already know that is a trait of these people no matter what they say.
They do not look at the least of them.
And this is the Yeah Jesus group, rrrrright.

[Crystal McCree]

09:26 AM on 09/15/2011

WWJD? He most than likely wouldn't be Republican...

[OGigi]

09:37 AM on 09/15/2011

The Christian-in-talking-points-only.
Even Karl Rove thinks the rad religious right are culls...after sewing up their $upport

[ls263]

10:44 AM on 09/15/2011

I am a Christian and I vote democrat. I know, I know-weird, huh? Dem policies fit my interpretation of the Gospels much more than the republican policies do. I really do not get it. I am at a loss at what Christians can relate to in the republican agenda.

[yemaya]

02:50 PM on 09/15/2011

good for you IS263.

[Crystal McCree]

08:42 PM on 09/15/2011

I'm a Christian also. So it's really frustrating to see that they have agendas of not helping others, racism, propaganda, gun rights, execution, etc. I'd wish more people who think these Republicans have Christian values at heart would pick up a Bible and think for a second.

[TREKMIND]

03:47 AM on 09/15/2011

Alan Grayson must return to congress.

[OGigi]

08:40 AM on 09/15/2011

This proves he was right when he gave the GOP/tp health plan for the least of us, if you get sick, die quickly.
Which group is about death panels? The ones pointing the accusation at others.

[yemaya]

02:51 PM on 09/15/2011

I wish! I loved it when he summed up the GOP healthcare view:

The gop health plan: don't get sick and if you do, die quickly.