RUSH: Back to the phones. Shirley in Shelby, Ohio. Welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: Rush, is this really you?
RUSH: Yes!
CALLER: Well, listen. I’m 81 years old, I went to my doctor three weeks ago and I had to renew a prescription and they’re setting up a new computer program there. I went into the office and they took my blood pressure and all that, and then they started firing a lot of questions at me, health and all that, and finally they get to: ‘Do you own a gun?’ ‘I’m 81.’ And then I said, ‘What’s that for?’ And they said, ‘Oh, it’s for the protection of the children.’ Well, my four kids are in their fifties and they all can carry their own guns.
RUSH: Wait a second. Who was asking you?
CALLER: The nurse that works in the office there before the doctor comes. You know, they take your blood pressure and your —
RUSH: Yeah, I’ve been asked this question before, too. Yeah.
CALLER: Yeah?
RUSH: Yeah, I have.
CALLER: A gun?
RUSH: Yeah, I’ve been asked that question: ‘Do you own a gun?’
CALLER: Well, what’s that got to do with a medical condition?
RUSH: It doesn’t. It’s all part of the prying into your personal life.
CALLER: It sure is.
RUSH: But I fully expect you do have a gun, you’re 81 years old, you do, right?
CALLER: Well, I tell you, I didn’t tell her the truth, and my sister is 85 and I know damn well she’s got a gun, too.
RUSH: (laughing) I knew you had a gun, I can hear it in your voice. You probably got more than one gun and you’re waiting for people like this to break into your house.
CALLER: Yeah! I expected them to say, ‘Have you ever made any or do you know of anybody that’s made derogatory remarks about our ruler?’ I’m expecting that yet. I know all this stuff is gonna go to the medical Gestapo there in Washington and I think it’s a bunch of BS.
RUSH: You are one pistol packing mama.
CALLER: I am mad. They don’t know how mad we are out here, and I’m talking about us old ladies, too.
RUSH: Let me ask you this.
CALLER: What?
RUSH: Shirley, did they ask you if you are or have you ever been a Republican?
CALLER: No, they didn’t, but it’s a wonder they didn’t.
RUSH: Well, that’s coming.
CALLER: Okay. I couldn’t believe they asked me that!
RUSH: Well, I’ve been asked this twice, and I don’t remember when, by medical people when I went to the doctor’s office, had to fill out some forms. I just don’t remember where it was but I’ve been asked that question twice: ‘Do you own a gun?’
CALLER: They say it’s for the protection of the children. How are they protecting our children when they’re getting ’em in debt up to their eyebrows?
RUSH: Wait a second. You gotta remember, now, who these people are.
CALLER: Oh, sure.
RUSH: They probably do think that if you have a gun in your house it’s endangering children.
CALLER: Oh, yeah, well, that’s a bunch of bull.
RUSH: Of course your children would be in their fifties.
CALLER: Yeah, they all carry their own guns.
RUSH: Yeah. (laughing) I know it. Well, get used to it, I mean that’s the invasive nature of the US health care system. Which reminds me, the New York Times: ‘Britain Plans to Decentralize Health Care — The plan would also shrink the bureaucratic apparatus, in keeping with the government’s goal to effect $30 billion in ‘efficiency savings.’ … The aim is clear: to shift control of England’s $160 billion annual health budget from a centralized bureaucracy to doctors at the local level.’ Central Planning doesn’t work, and we’re headed in that direction.