Olbermann: Health reform opponents ‘approve’ 45,000 deaths a year

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Conservative radio host Neal Boortz stirred up controversy on Monday with a Twitter posting saying, “ObamaCare will do more damage than a successful terrorist bombing of an airliner …and kill more people as well.”

Boortz, who has a well-deserved reputation for making deliberately offensive remarks, has been an active promoter of the American Seniors Association, a conservative seniors group which has gained notice for its opposition to health care reform but which Raw Story recently revealed to be an astroturf organization closely tied to the Tea Party movement.

Boortz was immediately called out by liberals for ignoring the number of Americans who already die for lack of affordable health care, which a study published last summer calculated as 45,000 a year, and on Tuesday MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann joined in as well.

“What would you do, sir, if terrorists were killing 45,000 people every year in this country?” Olbermann asked Boortz. “Well, the current health care system, the insurance companies, and those who support them are doing just that.”

“Let’s bring this in language even conservatives can understand,” he went on. “Those fighting health care reform … people who demand the status quo — they are killing 45,000 Americans every year. If they were killed all at once, or even a hundred at a time, Neal Boortz would be demanding martial law and government by the generals. Instead, because they die individually of disease and not disaster, Neal Boortz and those who ape him — in office and out — approve their deaths. All 45,000 of them. A year. In America.”

“Remind me again,” Olbermann concluded. “Who are the terrorists?”

This video is from MSNBC’s Countdown, broadcast Jan. 5, 2010.

Download video via RawReplay.com