Rick Perry doesn't see uninsured Texans, he "keeps score" by making health care "accessible," not affordable.

Did you ever have a bad transmission? Mechanics are accessible and ready to fix the problem.

Did you ever need immediate medical care? Doctors and hospitals are accessible and ready to help stop the pain, even save your life.

The latter example explains the simple Republican model for health care; "accessibility."

In one of the most stunning examples yet of tortured logic, Rick Perry says it's not about "forcing someone to buy insurance," it's about health care being "accessible." All that complicated stuff about paying insurance-deductibles-copays, that's not his problem, or how Republicans "keeps score."

It's the process, not the outcome. The party that once argued mandatory insurance to weed out freeloaders, is now saying just the opposite, and blissfully jacking the cost of premiums through the roof for everyone else. TPM:

"Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace on Sunday pressed former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) on his decision not to embrace Obamacare. Wallace noted that Texas had the highest uninsured rate in the country.

"More than 1 in 5 Texans didn’t have health coverage. And yet, you refused to set up a state exchange under Obamacare, you refused to expand Medicaid. I mean, is that looking out for the little guy, when 21 percent of Texans didn’t have health insurance?"

Perry was unmoved, because it really came down to semantics, a word game about the process. Perry doesn't use saving lives as a way to "keep score."

Perry: "If how you keep score is how many people you force to buy insurance, well, then I would say that that’s how you keep score. We make access to health care the real issue, we passed the most sweeping tort reform in the nation. It’s not about whether you force somebody to buy insurance, it’s whether Texans have access to good health care."

Insurance, and buying it, isn't Perry's problem. He's rationalized away what makes for-profit health care accessible, money. The U.S. system forces responsible people to buy insurance, or suffer the consequences, like being turned away, going bankrupt or die:

Wallace: "I understand that, sir, but don’t you, as the governor for 14 years, don’t you feel some responsibility when 21 percent of the people in your state didn’t have health insurance?" 

Perry: "But that’s not how we keep score. I think it’s a fallacy to say access to health care is all about insurance. What we happen to say in the state of Texas is we’re going to try to make as accessible as we can good quality health care."

Accessibility that's just beyond the reach of 21 percent of the state's citizens.