WWJD? Not Let The Uninsured Die

Conservative Christians Rebuke Tea Party Extremists

ThinkProgress traveled to Liberty University, one of the most conservative Christian universities in the country, earlier this week to cover a speech by Texas Governor Rick Perry. Following Perry’s speech, we asked students to comment on the shocking moment during this week’s GOP presidential debate when the Tea Party crowd cheered for the death of an uninsured man.

Check out the video from ThinkProgress’ Scott Keyes:

Here’s the transcript:

KEYES: In the debate on Monday, there was the question of whether or not a 30 year old who doesn’t have health insurance and gets in a major accident, we ought to just let him die or we ought to provide care for him. What do you think would be the Christian thing to do?

STUDENT 1: Definitely to give him care, no matter what your age is.

KEYES: What do you think the Christian thing to do there is?

STUDENT 2: If he didn’t have health insurance?

KEYES: Yeah.

STUDENT 2: I would say take care of him.

KEYES: Do you think it’s un-Christian to be letting uninsured people die? What would you do?

STUDENT 3: Why would someone let anyone die just because they can’t pay for something? That’s the thing I don’t understand. Me and my family, we’re financially impaired right now, we’re in a shelter. We have insurance and all that, but at the same time for those who don’t have insurance, what’s the point of killing someone, taking a life, just because they can’t pay for something? It’s like going to a hospital, charging millions of dollars to have an operation to save someone’s life, they can’t pay for it, okay so we’ve got to kill them? We can’t save a life because they can’t pay for it? That doesn’t make any sense to me, I don’t understand.

KEYES: Do you think that’s a Christian thing to let an uninsured person die?

STUDENT 4: Absolutely not. I don’t see how that’s Christian in any way. I mean “Christian.” I think everyone has the right to life, including I don’t agree with capital punishment, I think that those people also have a right to life.

KEYES: What do you think the Christian thing to do there would be?

STUDENT 5: I believe provide care for him. I believe we should provide some care for him.

KEYES: What do you think, do you think that it would be Christian to let uninsured people die?

STUDENT 6: I don’t think it is. I think that they should work towards making sure that people no matter what should live.

STUDENT 3: I bet if Jesus came back right now, all them politicians, all them doctors who had to do something like that would probably give their life to Christ because they felt so bad about themselves. Because they knew that they took a life just because someone couldn’t pay for it.