In a sense, it doesn’t matter for the election outcome what rightwing theocrat and presidential hopeful Rick Santorum thinks since he’s not going to win. He does epitomize, however, the conservative penchant for ‘factiness’: the ability to create pseudo-facts, also known as lying, that serve the purpose of bolstering a Great Truth. Here’s what Santorum recently said about the U.S. healthcare system (boldface mine):

Santorum also had a tense moment when a student asked him about health care and the Christian responsibility of caring for the poor.

The student said he didn’t “think God appreciates the fact that we have 50 to 100,000 uninsured Americans dying due to a lack of healthcare every year,” citing a 2009 study out of Harvard University.

“Dying?” Santorum answered before going back and forth about the validity of the study.

“The answer is not what can we do to prevent deaths because of a lack of health insurance. There’s — I reject that number completely, that people die in America because of lack of health insurance,” Santorum said to a crowd of 100.

“People die in America because people die in America. And people make poor decisions with respect to their health and their healthcare. And they don’t go to the emergency room or they don’t go to the doctor when they need to,” he said. “And it’s not the fault of the government for not providing some sort of universal benefit.

Never mind the data that suggest otherwise.

And then there’s the reality of a dead ten year-old child (boldface mine):

She had the flu, you see. The doctor wasn’t concerned. And since her Mom and Dad had no insurance, she was just another one of those Pains In the Butt. Go home, Kid, and lump it. A couple of days later, Mom and Dad were really getting worried. She was blue around her mouth and nose. She said she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t pee, either.

The second doctor that saw her said it was the “worst kidney infection he’d ever seen”. Gave her some antibiotic samples and sent her home. That was just yesterday, at 3:30. She died today just after noon, with a helicopter trying to get there in time and a young doctor in the ER doing everything he could think of for a little girl that told him, “I trust you. I see in your eyes you’re a good person. You will help me”. Lexy’s heart stopped, and this young man threw all his training, all his will, into making that heart start up again. He cried, he sobbed, while he shouted orders and pitted all he was against the forces arrayed against him. In anguish he cried out, “Why the HELL didn’t he KEEP HER IN THE HOSPITAL”??, referring to the second physician to see her, with her blue nails and mouth.

Because her parents didn’t have health insurance.