RUSH: A couple of health care audio sound bites. Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown was on State of the Union on CNN Sunday. John King says, ‘If in the end you can’t get Lieberman, Lincoln, Landrieu, and you can’t pass a bill without at least going to a trigger, would you make that compromise?’
BROWN: In the end, I don’t want four Democratic Senators dictating to the other 56 of us and to the country — when the public option has this much support — that it’s not going to be in it. People want every option. If we’re telling people you have to buy insurance, we shouldn’t tell them they’ve gotta buy insurance from a private insurance company. But in the end I think that all four of our colleagues survey the — this — look at this bill in the end and say… I don’t think they want to be on the wrong side of history.
RUSH: Oh, ‘the wrong side of history’ is where you’re going to be, Senator Brown. There is no majority for the public option in an honest poll. ‘I’m not going to let four senators dictate to the rest of us…’ Well, it’s going to be a lot more than four because a lot more than four are going to hold out for something like what Landrieu got: $300 million. Here’s Mark Udall [D-Colo.] on the Senate floor… Here’s a portion of what he said.
UDALL: My advice to women in listening to this debate is that they should be consulting their doctors when it comes to things like this. They should be listening to their doctors. Their doctors are up on the best research; they’re up on the best science; they’re up on the best medicine and get on top of it. And so I would just say to the women of America, ‘Listen to your doctors, not to Rush Limbaugh.’
RUSH: He’s on the floor of the US Senate and I do not know what he was talking about. Maybe it was the mammogram thing. I have no clue what he was talking about. All I know is that I could probably put my finger on a number of women’s lives who have been saved as a result of listening to this show. Okay, to the phones. We continue now with Kathy in Santa Barbara, California, where Oprah is going to end up after she leaves Chicago. Nice to have you. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thank you so much for your time.
RUSH: You bet.
CALLER: I just think it’s interesting that the Senator just said ‘listen to your doctors’ but we won’t be able to do that if their plan goes through, will we?
RUSH: No. The doctor will have to listen to some bureaucrat.
CALLER: Interesting. Hey, I’m a nurse here in Santa Barbara, and I see the results of what happens to people when they don’t take care of themselves and their health. I do know that there are people that take care of themselves that still get sick and still come down with cancer, and I actually don’t mind some of my taxes going to support some of that. But what does frost me is the fact that there are people that just don’t care and they don’t take care of themselves, and it angers me to think that my taxes are going to go for their health care.
RUSH: Well, they already do. Your taxes go to their health care. They’re going to be required to buy it or they go to jail under this bill.
CALLER: Right. But my taxes are going to have to go for health care to support people that don’t take care of themselves, that get diabetes and heart disease and all that.
RUSH: Well, well, the people that don’t take care of themselves are ‘among the least fortunate in our society.’ They don’t take care of themselves because they’re so depressed that Bush was in the White House for eight years, and they’re depressed over a lot of things — and it’s America’s fault. We owe it to them.
CALLER: Oh.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: It sort of reminds me of having to pay car insurance for somebody that doesn’t drive well or has a number of DUIs or something. It just doesn’t make any sense to me.
RUSH: Well, you don’t have to do that yet.
CALLER: Well, not yet, but you see what I’m saying. If I’m a good driver. I don’t have to pay as much money on car insurance. But the day that I have to pay more money because somebody else has to have car insurance and they’re not a good driver? Why do I have to pay for that?
RUSH: Well, actually you’re not. With auto insurance you’re actually insuring yourself against something that you might do to something else.
CALLER: I’m just saying that thinking of health care reminds me of that. I’m just using that as an example.
RUSH: Ah. The old analogy trick.
CALLER: Right. Somebody else isn’t responsible and I have to pay for it.
RUSH: Well, look, I totally agree with you, but that’s been the rules of the game here in the basic welfare state for I don’t know how long. Obama’s entire agenda is based on everybody doing just that. Five percent pull the cart and the wagon, and 95% percent are in it. Sometimes you do have to pay for uninsured motorist coverage. You do have to pay for that. But, at any rate, if you’re opposed to paying things for other people, you’ve been doing it a long time before health care. I mean, you’re paying for other people to eat through food stamps. Who knows what else you’re paying for?