Rick Santorum: Your Life-Saving Drug Costs $1 Million? That's Capitalism!

He went on to criticize individuals for feeling entitled to free health care while willingly paying exorbitant prices for luxury products.

"People have no problem paying $900 for an iPad, but paying $900 for a drug, they have a problem with. It keeps you alive!" he said. "Why? Because you've been conditioned to think health care is something you can get without having to pay for it."

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Santorum's Errors

There are so many problems with this statement, it's hard to know where to begin.

For one thing, there is an enormous difference between a medication that costs $900 a year and a medication that costs $1 million a year. When a drug costs that much -- and many life-saving medications cost even more -- willingness to pay becomes almost entirely irrelevant. The issue is ability to pay. If this woman loses her insurance, there is no way she will be able to pay for her son's medication, no matter how much she wants to and no matter how much she appreciates the work and money Bristol-Myers Squibb put in to develop Abilify.

That point -- that many individuals simply cannot afford to pay market value for life-saving medications -- seemed to go right over Santorum's head. He seems to think people are consumed by their senses of entitlement and don't want to pay fair prices.

This is incredibly misleading -- but not surprising in light of Santorum's past statements.

At a campaign stop in Iowa in December, for example, he made the exceptionally dubious claim that people do not "die in America because of lack of health insurance."

"People die in America because people die in America, and people make poor decisions with respect to their health and their health care, and they don't go to the emergency room or they don't go to the doctor when they need to. And it's not the fault of the government for not providing some sort of universal benefit," he said, completely ignoring the fact that many people don't seek medical treatment when they need it because they are uninsured and can't afford it.

And at a campaign stop in New Hampshire around the same time, Santorum said that individuals with pre-existing conditions should be charged extra for insurance coverage, citing the example of his own daughter, Bella, who has Trisomy 18.

"We have to pay more because she has a pre-existing condition. Well, we should pay more. She's going to be very expensive to the insurance company, and, you know, that cost is passed along to us," he said. "I'm okay with that."

Again, he glossed over the fact that, seeing as he has become a millionaire since he was voted out of the Senate in 2006, he can afford to pay more for Bella Santorum's insurance. Other families aren't so lucky.

But apparently, if paying exorbitant market prices is good enough for Santorum, it should be good enough for everyone else.

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