A conservative is somebody who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing
Your comments about Tom's use of statistics are, I assume, rhetorical. It's too obvious that he uses statistics to bolster a pre-existing position, and never to look for an actual solution. I think we'd all keel over in shock if, someday, Tom turns up a statistic that contradicts his beliefs. Republicans are dedicated to preventing a solution to the problem of health care, not to finding such a solution.
Compassion and human experience are impossible to quantify so you'll talk till your face turns blue if you turn this into some numbers game. He wins by pushing the conversation that way.
As a disembodied brain floating in a bell jar of formaldehyde, Tom firmly believes that "emotion is the enemy of reason", and thus any whiff of emotion in an issue automatically discredits it. E.g.,
TB: I appreciate the sympathy and desire to help that makes nationalized health care so appealing--there's a lot of emotion involved in these discussions
...in which the insincere praise for "sympathy and [the] desire to help" is simply the set up for the killer "but", the supposedly inarguable statistic that "proves" the worthlessness of that craven "sympathy and [the] desire to help".
It's not possible to make value judgments, let alone develop a cohesive system of values, without emotion. It's not possible to make wise decisions about the welfare of 300 million people when you reject empathy and compassion as weaknesses. It's the emotional value judgment that providing adequate health care for every member of our society is worthwhile that provides the motivation to find a way to do it without breaking the bank. The Republican strategy is to ensure that we never make the attempt and never find a way to do it, thus making their "government is evil and incompetent" cant a self-fulfilling prophecy.