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RUSH: ‘Government-Run Health Care by Next Thursday? — The Washington Post front page blares today: ‘Prospects for Public Option Dim in Senate.” This is all because of the vote yesterday in committee. I got a bunch of e-mails from people last night. ‘Hey, Rush! Hey, Rush! It failed! It failed and they didn’t tell you about it until after your show so you couldn’t rip them to shreds.’ Don’t be fooled, folks. ‘[T]he Senate Finance Committee did vote down two amendments that each would have added a government-run insurance plan to the committee’s health care bill. But two key Democrats who voted against Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s (D-WV) public plan, Bill Nelson (D-FL) and Tom Carper (D-DE), voted for Sen. Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) version.

‘According to an independent analysis of Senate Democrat public statements on the public option, that raises the number of Democrats on record supporting a public option from 47 to 49. Moreover, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), chairmen of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee [said] that Democrats ‘comfortably’ have the remaining votes to reach 51 and pass a public plan once the debate moves to the House floor.’ Now, here’s how this is going to happen. Brian Darling works at the Heritage Foundation. He’s director of the US Senate relations at Heritage.

‘President Obama and liberals in Congress seem intent on passing comprehensive health care reform, even though polls suggest it is unpopular with the American people,’ just like bringing the Olympics to Chicago and over half Chicago doesn’t want the Olympics. But, you know, the small-R republican that defines this country, representative republic, it’s gone. It’s gone. We may as well have a semi-dictatorship now. We may as well have a semi-tyranny now. Because the small-R republican that defined this form of government has just been white-washed away. Here’s how they’re going to do this: ‘The Senate plans to attach Obamacare to a House-passed non-healthcare bill’ that has nothing to do with health care. You say, ‘Well, Rush, how do they do that?’

Well, they can do anything they want. ‘[N]obody knows what that legislation looks like, because it has not yet been written. Yet many members plan to rubber-stamp Obamacare without reading or understanding the bill. The Senate Finance Committee worked furiously last week to mark up a ‘conceptual framework’ of health care reform. The committee actually rejected an amendment by Sen. Jim Bunning (R.-Ky.) to mandate that the bill text and a final cost analysis by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) be publicly available at least 72 hours before the Finance Committee votes on final passage. The following four-step scenario describes one way liberals plan to work the rules in their favor to get Obamacare through the Senate: Step 1: The Senate Finance Committee must first approve the marked-up version of Sen. Max Baucus’ (D.-Mont.) conceptual framework.

‘Then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D.-Nev.) can say that two Senate Committees have passed a health care bill,’ Baucus’ committee and Harkin’s committee, the HELP committee. So you’ll have two Senate Committees which have passed the bills ‘which will allow [Reid] to take extraordinary steps to get the bill on the Senate floor. During the mark-up last week, members had difficulty offering amendments and trying to make constructive changed because they lacked actual legislative text and Baucus made unilateral last minute changes. For example, the AP reported that ‘under pressure from fellow Democrats, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee decided to commit an additional $50 billion over a decade toward making insurance more affordable for working-class families.’

‘Step 2,’ after the two Senate bills have been introduced on the floor, ‘Sen. Reid will take the final product of the Senate Finance Committee and merge it with the product of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, which passed on a party-line vote in July.’ So the two health care bills in the Senate will be merged into one. Now, ‘Usually, a bill is voted out of committee, and then the Senate takes up the final product of the committee so that all 100 senators can have a hand in the process. With some help from the Obama administration, Reid [alone] will decide what aspects of the HELP and Finance Committee bills to keep.’ They’re going to merge this, actually take what Harry Reid and Obama want from the two Senate bills. Then, when that’s done, ‘Step 3: Now, Obamacare will be ready to hitch a ride on an unrelated bill from the House. Sen. Reid will move to proceed to H.R. 1586, a bill to impose a tax on bonuses received by certain TARP recipients. This bill was passed by the House in the wake of the AIG bonus controversy…’ So let me stop right there, because there’s another step after this to explain how this is all going to happen.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let me see if I can synthesize this and make the complex understandable. They want to get a health care bill to Obama next week. They don’t want to have to go through the 60-vote requirement and they really don’t want to go through reconciliation because there’s been enough education now that people know reconciliation is only used for budget items, the rules prevent it for anything else. But they want to get this health care bill through because they’re losing on the issue with the American people, they don’t want any more debate about it. So they’ve got two bills in the Senate. They got Harkin’s bill, they got Baucus’ bill, two different committees. Harry Reid is going to take the parts of both of these bills that he likes and merge them, come up with one bill and take it to the Senate floor. Now, after they’ve got their health care bill to the Senate floor, as you know the House has to do something on this as well. The House health care bill hasn’t passed. But there is a bill in the House that’s been collecting dust over there that has passed, it’s sitting around. The Senate hasn’t taken any action on that bill. That is a bill that imposes a tax on bonuses received by certain TARP recipients. That was passed by the House in the wake of the AIG bonus controversy.

So you have the House bill, and that’s what Harry Reid wants to attach the merged Senate bill to. You say, ‘Well, how do they get them health care?’ Stand by. That’s the complex being made understandable here right before your very eyes and ears. Now, this move to proceed at this point does require 60 votes to start the debate. After the motion is approved, Senator Reid will offer Obamacare as a complete substitute to the unrelated House passed bill, with the cooperation of Pelosi. The House is not being left out of this. This is all part of the stratagem. What this means is that the entire health care reform effort will be included as an amendment to the TARP bill that has been collecting dust in the Senate for months because the House passed it long ago, the Senate hasn’t taken any action on it so Reid is going to merge these two health care bills, attach it to the TARP bill basically as an amendment and then have the TARP bill passed, the bonus bill passed in the Senate. Now, for this strategy to work, it’s not smooth sailing. It’s not like a hot knife through butter. The proponents here would need to hold together the liberal caucus of 58 Democrats, including Paul Kirk, who was named to replace Senator Kennedy, and Lieberman and Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

These members will all have to hold hands and vote against any filibuster. And that still remains the big obstacle for them. Once the Senate takes up the bill, after they’ve got the 60 votes to start debate, it doesn’t take 60 more votes to pass it. Once debate has started, once they got the 60 votes to get going, after that all they need is 51 votes to pass it. And it’s possible that one of the endangered moderate Democrats like Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas could vote to stop a filibuster, then vote against Obamacare so as not to offend any angry constituents. So that’s going to be a big thing to watch. And by that very little of this is going to be happening publicly. A lot of this is behind the scenes. You’re going to wake up one day, if all this goes as Reid and Pelosi and Obama have it planned, you’re going to wake up one day and find out that they’ve all voted on single payer health care with a public option in it. And you’ll say, ‘Wait a minute, what happened to the House bill?’ The House bill is the TARP bill. And the Senate health care bill becomes an amendment to it. Then you go to conference, everybody accepts it, signs off on it.

Once the Senate passes their bill, with their version of the bonus bill, sends it to the House, all the House would have to do is pass it without any changes. And Obama will then present it with his health care reform measure. If this doesn’t work, then they’re going to have to go back to reconciliation to pass the legislation. So they’ve still got some things in their way. It’s not smooth sailing, but this is the plan. And, of course, one of the things that we say here, all we have to do in the House is just have them pass the bill without any changes, that’s going to be tough because the House has its own renegades over there, and it’s got, you know, Congressional Black Caucus and all these disparate groups who might not like everything in the Senate bill, the Senate bill might not have enough in it to satisfy them. So it’s not smooth sailing. But what the point here is to give you a sense of the anti-American public sentiment that is fueling the passage of this bill. They know, Harry Reid and Pelosi both know that if they conduct the debate and produce the legislation in the standard way, that they won’t have a bill by Christmas, they won’t have a bill by next year, if they do it in normal circumstances.

But if they play rule games and parliamentary rule games and actually have the health care bill sent to Obama be a bill that taxes bonuses paid to TARP recipients that has an amendment, health care reform, they think that this is a way to get it done surreptitiously without a whole lot of people knowing what is going on. And if they do it this way you are now informed and advised and you will have a big say-so in stopping this. But the point here, folks, the small-R representative republic here, nothing to do with the Republican Party, it’s out the window. These leftists, these Democrats don’t give a rat’s rear end about the democratic process or what you want. This is all about the advancement of their agenda. And don’t be fooled. Don’t be fooled. They’re going to try to ram something through by any means possible. They’re going to conceal the true nature of it. If they get away with this, they’re going to tell you that they’re finally taking action on taxing the bonuses of these rich elitist Wall Street types, and they think that the class envy that they’ve created will have universal acceptance on the part of the American people, ‘Oh, yeah, tax those AIG bonuses, tax everybody else’s bonuses.’ That’s what they’re going to do. It’s going to be a feint and a misleading thing.

This is how Harry Reid’s going to drive the whole legislation back to the House, and this is essentially what reconciliation is all about. In one move — and they’re targeting next week to get this done — in one move the US Congress will take over hospitals, will take over laboratories, will take over the medical profession, will take over the insurance companies. What they are planning, let me point it out to you in an even more understandable fashion. What they are plotting and hope to pull off by next week will make the takeovers of General Motors and Chrysler look like a joke. And once they’ve taken over the hospitals, the labs, the medical profession, the insurance companies, guess who’s gonna get patronage jobs in all these industries? The union people, particularly the SEIU union people. The Harry Reid, Pelosi, Obama plan comes down to this: The Democrats are scheming against the American people, as they have been all along. The Obama administration, starting with the campaign, was a scheme against the American people and against the traditions and institutions that have defined this country’s greatness.

I know I say that like a broken record. But it takes repetition. The Obama administration is a scheme. The Obama campaign was a scheme. There’s not going to be any tort reform in this, just window dressing. And the purpose will be to siphon money from taxpayers and doctors and hospitals to the trial lawyers, who in turn will load up Democrat coffers with contributions. And during every election cycle, the Democrats using the power of government will reward those who support them and deny those who don’t support them with any benefits. In the end, this is going to drive the nation into poverty, it is going to drive the nation into disunity, but by the time that happens — this is not going to happen overnight — by the time that happens the current crop of leftists and radicals engineering all this will be gone. They don’t care about the nation’s future and your children. They care about them now and changing and remaking this country in their image and getting it done in such a way that rolling it back will be difficult, if impossible to do.

Folks, it’s this simple. Take it or leave it. Marxism, socialism, statism generally creates poverty. You want to hear something funny? Kim Jong-il has decided that communism doesn’t work. He’s taken the word ‘communism’ out of the North Korean constitution and replaced it with ‘socialism.’ I don’t care where you go, whatever they call themselves, progressives — go to Detroit — what do you see in Detroit? Abject poverty. What do you see in most of Michigan? Abject poverty. What do you see where liberal Democrat socialists anywhere in the world have total unchecked power to run things, be it a country or be it a city or be it a state? You see abject poverty. Marxism, socialism, create poverty. I know it’s hard to believe that this is somebody’s design. But it is. Somebody who thinks this is an immoral and unjust country, this country deserves to live like the rest of the world, the rest of the world lives in poverty because of us. This is what Obama believes. Obama believes we’ve stolen the riches of the world, that we have used our imperialism to dominate the world and we’re unjust and immoral. If he could rip up that Constitution he would do it. He doesn’t like it. It’s an obstacle. It is a problem.

If you don’t believe me on this, try this. I don’t know if you’ve heard about this. Pat Leahy and John Conyers — Leahy in the Senate, Conyers in the House — are pushing a bill through Congress that will create 63 new federal judgeships. There’s only one reason for that. Load up the judiciary with more leftists who will ensure that the policies this Congress and this president pass today will be forever upheld within the law. You heard of Roosevelt stacking the Supreme Court? These guys are stacking the federal judiciary. Sixty-three new federal judgeships. The goal of all of this is to smother the individual. The individual, you will be so busy working your way through the maze of rules that are imposed on you in this health care business and everything else that you won’t have time to think for yourself. Make no mistake about this. This is all aimed at robbing you of your humanity and forcing you to bow down to the state. If you feel sick, need a procedure, need a prescription, you’re going to be thinking about the government. Who do I see? What do they want me to do for it? Where do I go? What do I have to do to have my treatment approved?

In other words, you are going to be relying on government for your survival. That’s never happened before in this country outside of national security and natural disaster contexts, this has never happened before. From now on you’re going to need your government’s permission to get well. Even if there are people who can medically help you, even if there are technologies and drugs that can help you, you’re still going to need permission from the government, some bureaucrat, before you can make use of them, because some bureaucrat’s going to tell a doctor somewhere or a hospital whether or not you qualify for treatment. This is the ultimate power over you and your family. You will do anything your government says, you’ll do anything you must if it’s a life or death scenario, and especially if it involves your kids, your kids have a sickness, you’ll do anything your government asks you to do. The Road to Serfdom, to steal the title of a great book by Friedrich Von Hayek, The Road to Serfdom is paved in Obamacare that they want on his desk for signature by next week.

It’s not going to be a matter of whether you can or cannot pay. It won’t be a matter of whether you have coverage or don’t have coverage. What will matter is that all of us will be slaves, we’ll become slaves to the arbitrary and inhumane decisions of distant bureaucrats working in Washington where there’s no competition. Nobody you can go to if you don’t like what you hear from the bureaucrats that you have to deal with. If you want to take a close look at it, listen to those in this administration and those who run Congress what they’re saying about 9.7% unemployment and over 52% youth unemployment. What are you hearing about that? Nothing. You’re not hearing a word. You’re not hearing a word about the dismal economy, other than, ‘It’s going to be bad for a while, but we’re working on it, stimulus is working, working better than we ever imagined.’ Obama flies off to make some pitch for the Olympics. When he and his people do finally speak about the economy they tell us we’re coming out of the recession. Sound like compassion to you?

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, we’ve all heard the question asked, and we’ve all asked the question of members of Congress, ‘Hey, are you going to sign up? Are you going to sign up yourself and your family to the same health care plan you’re putting us into?’ There’s no way that’s going to happen, but wait until you hear this. You don’t know the half of their health care plan and options and treatment. You don’t know the half of it. I’m going to get to that at the top of the next hour. What you need to know — and I’m sure you do, you just need to be reminded of this. The same people pushing government health care are the same people who have driven the finances of this nation over the cliff. From the Community Redevelopment Act; Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac; trillions in red ink for Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security; they have lied repeatedly about what they’re doing what they can do.

And yet they promise yet again to cover everybody for everything at all times, while also insisting they’re going to cut costs, cut waste, and be more efficient — when they’ve never, ever done it in the history of the country! It’s never happened. It’s the height of folly; it’s a triumph of emotion over common sense, for people in this country to believe that something that has never happened can happen. It’s easier to believe that something that has happened can happen again than to believe that something that’s never happened can happen. There’s never been a major, serious government program that cut costs, that cost less than what they said it was gonna cost, that expanded freedom — and, in the final analysis, that actually worked! It never ceases to amaze me that a nation founded on the notion of individual liberty, private property, limited government, is run by politicians now who reject it all. That is, they reject the very principles about which the nation was established.

That is Barack Obama and his administration. That is Barney Frank. That is Harry Reid. They’re too cowardly to say so openly. They’re too cowardly to say, ‘You know what? The Constitution is bad. It sucks. The federal government needs more power. The private sector should exist for the sole purpose of funding government.’ That’s what they believe. They don’t have the guts to say it. You ought to be happy, they believe, that there are a handful of them smart enough to manage your lives so that you don’t keep screwing things up. This is what the left really thinks. This is what the left really believes. But they’re too cowardly to just say it. They’re too power-hungry to risk having their political asses handed to them, which they would. If they were ever open and honest about their plans they would have their political asses handed to them, and it would be the end of the Democrat Party. Let me say what needs to be said, whatever the consequences. The consequences have never stopped me before. Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Schumer, Frank and the rest of them do not like this country as constituted. They do not like the Constitution. They do not like the private sector. They do not like individual rights. Their every action and policy is aimed at diminishing all of that. They hate the military, of course, but I’m talking about fundamental principles of liberty, property, limited government. They reject it completely. It’s right in front of our eyes to see it, we just have to have the courage to admit it. They are killing the private sector right in front of our eyes. They know it. They’re breaking the states. They’re all in debt. They know it. They’re smothering individual initiative and opportunity, and they know it. It’s about our freedom, folks.

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