Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann told a man who said he had no teeth that single-payer health care was the "worst possible system."
At a campaign stop in New Hampshire Monday, a man asked the candidate about her desire to "wean everybody" except for older Americans off of Social Security and Medicare.
"The president in all likelihood plans that Medicare will collapse and go broke and instead, what will happen is that everyone will go into Obamacare," Bachmann argued. "There's too many beautiful 85-year-old frail women who are depending on this system. And I love these senior citizens too much to have them worried that that's not going to be there for them... We made a promise. We have to keep the promise. For these beautiful young people that are here today, we can't chain them to a 75 percent effective tax rate. I won't do that to these people."
By the time the man asked his follow-up question, the campaign staff has already taken away the microphone, making his comments inaudible. But it was clear from Bachmann's response and from journalist Charlie Perkins that the man had said he had "no teeth."
Video of the exchange indicated that the man did have at least a few teeth.
"You want socialized medicine," Bachmann said. "I want you to have the best dental health care you can have. I want you to have the best health care you can have, and that's why I don't want you to have socialized medicine. That would be the worst possible system you could have."
"The free market provides you with the best system and we have charitable organizations and there's universities who are willing to take people are indigent. There are programs that are set up for the indigent, but don't destroy the finest health care system in the world to have socialized medicine because we have people who are indigent in the society. We take care of people who are indigent, people without funds. We do that through charity or we do that through university programs."
