RUSH: Now, the left, I mentioned, they are just livid, folks, about the drug re-importation amendment of ‘Helmet Head’ Dorgan being defeated, final vote 51-48, 60 votes were needed to pass the thing. You go to various websites and you will find a list of all the Democrats who voted to kill this, and these fringe kook-leftist websites are targeting them. ‘The amendment…’ This is the Washington Post. ‘The amendment, sponsored by Senator Dorgan, would allow pharmacies and wholesalers to import US-approved medication from Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan, where drug costs are far lower because of price controls. The measure has attracted bipartisan support from lawmakers, including Olympia Snowe and John McCain. But the pharmaceutical industry, which has been a key supporter of health care reform after reaching an agreement with Obama, has responded with a fierce lobbying campaign aimed at killing the proposal, focusing on Democrat senators from states with large drug and research sectors.’ They are livid out there, and here’s why. We go back to Obama, audio sound bite number one, October 4th, 2008, Newport News, Virginia.
OBAMA 2008: Then we’ll tell the pharmaceutical companies, ‘Thanks but no thanks for overpriced drugs.’ Drugs that cost twice as much here as they do in Europe and Canada and Mexico. We’ll let Medicare negotiate for lower prices. We’ll stop drug companies from blocking generic drugs that are just as effective and far less expensive. We’ll allow the safe re-importation of low-cost drugs from countries like Canada. Number two: We’re gonna focus on prevention, on promoting wellness rather than just managing sickness.
RUSH (godlike reverb): As I said, ladies and gentlemen, the left is livid with Obama because he sold ’em out on this promise by cutting a deal with Big Pharma. And, from the Chicago Defender, August 11, 2004: ‘Democrat Senate candidate Barack Obama and Republican rival Alan Keyes managed to agree on at least one thing Tuesday: Both support legalizing pharmaceutical drug imports to spare Americans the higher US prices.’ So Obama is well known to be on record for this. Another thing, too: Should Americans be allowed to purchase their prescription drugs from other countries? And they quote Obama here, June 4, 2008: ‘A truly meaningful prescription drug program should provide a benefit that seniors can understand and count on to reduce the cost of these drugs. To help lower the cost of these drugs, Senator Obama has supported efforts to allow American seniors to purchase prescription drugs in Canada and bring ’em back to the US.’ So they are just flipped out there over this as much as they are anything else. (end godlike reverb) From March 7: ‘ Pharmaceutical Market Access and Drug Safety Act.’ The AARP wanted the legalization of the re-importation of drugs from other countries in order to make drugs cheaper, and it’s gone. Obama just casually threw it out; and what the left is learning is it doesn’t matter in the slightest what’s in the bill, as far as Obama is concerned. Just getting one is paramount. I warned them! I warned them Monday, August 24th, of this year.
RUSH ARCHIVE: The CIA stuff, this new interrogation, all it is… I’m telling you: Trust me. Don’t doubt me. All this is is an attempt to get these people back in gear because they hate the whole idea of an imperial US military more than they want the public option. They want Al-Qaeda to be portrayed as the good guys. They want the Taliban to be portrayed as the good guys. They want the US to be portrayed as the bad guys… They’re changing the subject from the debacle that health care has become; they’re changing the subject from the fact the public option is in big trouble, and they’re trying to rally the base now with a golden oldie, something from the Grooveyard of Forgotten Favorites. … [T]his is an act of desperation, it is an attempt to change the subject, it’s an attempt to get his base back on his side again because they know — and I think this is true, it’s frightening, but it is true. The Democrat base, the far left radical lunatic fringe base, cares more about this country being humiliated militarily, foreign policy-wise, than they care about the public option.
RUSH: Well, that was my opinion back on August 24th, but if I was right (and I think I was right then) the passage of time since then has reinvigorated the left’s anger at Obama for selling them out on the public option, cheaper drugs, and the Medicare expansion.
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RUSH: To the phones we go, to Jim in Orlando. Great to have you on the phones, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, Rush. How you doing? Dittos, and great show on Shatner last week.
RUSH: Thank you, sir, very much.
CALLER: Listen, I know this is anecdotal, but I got a little story about prescriptions that just underscores the crap that’s going on in DC. I suffer from both gout and psoriasis. I’m over 60. I need medications for this. The last time I got my psoriasis medication was four years ago. I got a prescription last week because I have a flare-up, and I went to fill it yesterday, and four years ago it cost me $90 for a little two-ounce tube of salve. That prescription today was $185 and I had to pass it up because I couldn’t afford it. I don’t have medical insurance, and I’ve been unemployed for 18 months now. So I had to pass that up. My gout prescription, which I can’t pass up, costs me $5 dollars a pill, and there are no substitutes for either one of these. No generics. So I don’t have a choice in the matter, and that’s $300 a month for my gout medication. It just galls the heck out of me — pardon my French — that these characters in DC don’t know what the meaning of the concept of ‘for the good of the group’ is. They give a lot of lip service to it, but they are so far up the rear ends of vested interests and moneymakers and lobbyists that they haven’t got a clue what they were hired to do in the first place. People like you and me and every other citizen in this country put them in a position to where they’re supposed to make decisions and vote on policies that are in the best interests of the group, meaning us.
RUSH: Well, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You are missing something crucial. They do know the meaning of the concept ‘for the good of the group.’ The group happens to be them.
CALLER: Well, that’s not the group that they were voted to serve.
RUSH: Well, you don’t need to… Look, you don’t need to go to the concept that the insurance companies are in bed with the Democrats to get mad at this bill. You look at any other aspect of this bill and you would have to conclude the last people, the last group that Democrats are trying to please or satisfy or even do something good for is their own voters.
CALLER: And why don’t those people wake up and smell the roses or the coffee or whatever —
RUSH: Because, because —
CALLER: — axiom you want to use?
RUSH: Because — don’t doubt me — those people hate conservatives and Republicans more than they will ever get mad at Democrats. The Democrats play on that constantly.
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RUSH: To South Windsor, Connecticut. Hey, George, I’m glad you waited. Welcome to the program.
CALLER: Yeah, Rush. You know, I’ve been listening to you for some time, and I’m thinking I got you wrong, but I’ve been listening to you talk about Big Pharma, and it seems as though you’re kind of coming down very negative. As you know it’s a private industry and you’re pro-private industry to get things done, and the industry has gone through an enormous amount of layoffs, whether it’s Pfizer or Bristol-Myers or Merck. I mean, over the last several years there’s been, you know, huge, huge layoffs. But you don’t hear anything about it, and there’s no sympathy in the mainstream media about it. And so now this whole re-importation, and if you want I can try to help you better understand it in a simplistic way if you want to, but I hope that, you know, you’re not —
RUSH: No, no. You have misunderstood. You are not trusting what you know.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: You know, you just said it. I’m a big, big believer in private sector. I am a huge believer in American private sector businesses. They have made the country what it is. Now, you know that. You’ve listened to me long enough, you said so. So you hear me today discussing how the Democrats are all ticked off because the re-importation of drugs amendment by Byron Dorgan failed and you might have heard some glee in my voice. I’m happy the Democrats are flummoxed here. I’m one of the biggest defenders of Big Pharma, of Big Retail, of Big Oil, of the American private sector, capitalism, that you’ll ever find. I got nothing against you guys. You guys have helped make this the greatest health care system on the planet. Now, I’m not institutionally supportive. If somebody engages in unfair practices, I’m going to call ’em on that, but I’m not institutionally opposed to it, which is what all the Democrats are.
CALLER: Right. Your caller that called before from Orlando with gout, I mean if he doesn’t have a pharmaceutical plan for his insurance, whatever insurance he has or if he doesn’t, there are plenty of resources within the industry to help him with some of these medicines that may be of a certain cost that he’s having difficulty paying for.
RUSH: Yes, I was remiss in not mentioning those programs. But he may not know how to access them, he may not even know they exist, and I was remiss in not mentioning that. The best way to say this is that I am not in the tank for any private sector corporation. I’m in the tank for capitalism. I understand that there are going to be people that break the law and engage in unfair business practices. It’s human nature. It’s the way it is. But that does not, to me, indict the system, it indicts those individuals. The Democrat Party wants to put you out of business. They want to put the private sector insurance business out of business. They have spent 50 years, or more, getting average Americans to despise you and other private sector businesses. And I resent the hell out of it.
CALLER: It’s working. They’re doing a good job because there have been a number of layoffs of which affects a lot of things, from research and development for better and newer drugs.
RUSH: Let me tell you something, though. One of the reasons they succeed in this PR message and one of the things I tell you I am a little bit upset about, why in the world would you guys get in bed with Obama in the first place? Why would you go ahead and give him $150 billion to run ads to support the program? Where’s your guts? Where’s the industry guts to stand up and say, ‘This sucks, this is bad for America.’ All they’re doing is spending protection money. They’re giving Obama $150 billion in exchange for Obama not targeting them. What good did it get ’em? You get in bed with snakes you’re in bed with snakes.
CALLER: Right, you’re right, you cover both sides of the coin, and, again, you’re the all-knowing, all-caring Maha Rushie close to 99 percent accuracy right now.
RUSH: It’s 99.5 but who’s counting?
CALLER: (laughing) Thank you.
RUSH: You bet. Look, there’s a lot of things I get ticked off about here. In my perfect world, which is based on common sense, here you have Big Pharma, and they know full well that they’ve got an administration that’s going to try to bankrupt them. Instead of getting in bed with them and buying protection, stand up to them! I do. I’m still alive. I’m still here. My business is still thriving. I don’t understand the cowardice. And don’t tell me, ‘Well, a lot of money is at stake.’ Yes, a lot of money is at stake and if you get in bed with the people that institutionally hate you you’re going to end up losing your money anyway no matter what deal you make with them.