RUSH: Michelle in Memphis. I’m glad you called. Thank you for calling, and welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: Thank you so much. I’m so excited to talk to you.
RUSH: You bet.
CALLER: Also want to say, my father, who was a wonderful man and who turned me on to you, by the way, he was diagnosed with the very same brain tumor that Kennedy had back in 1999, and we did our research and found out that the best doctor was at Duke University and it’s the same doctor that Kennedy went to.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: My father passed away, but he did a lot of… Um… I’m sorry. I’m nervous; I’m shaking. He did a lot of experimental protocols, that sort of thing to further the research and I just found it ironic and appalling that Kennedy would want a health care bill where the regular people wouldn’t have access to the top-notch facilities and the top-notch care that’s available; only the elite people would. It just seems kind of sad to me.
RUSH: Well, I’ll tell you what. I’m a little uncomfortable today going after Senator Kennedy on matters of politics, which is why I chose to — you can call it a eulogy or whatever, in the previous mono… (interruption) What are you laughing at in there, Snerdley? What are you laughing at? Well, I think it suffices to say that it would be hypocritical as it could have been to put his name on a health care bill that forces things on people that he was not forcing on himself. I think it would be an insult to his memory. His struggle was to live. His life should be remembered in that way. If we’re going to put his name on a health care bill, if we’re going to pursue national health care in his name, then it would be so inappropriate to have a plan that forces on people things that he refused to limit himself to. Charles in Bossier City, Louisiana. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: God bless. I get to talk to you. Let me get to my point.
RUSH: Yes, sir.
CALLER: Everyone is wanting to know, ‘Why all the hate out here in the country?’ Chris Matthews: ‘Why is there hate?’ I’m going to tell you why there’s hate. What Ted Kennedy did to Clarence Thomas and Judge Bork and their families, how he just put the hate and fear in them, tore their families down. That’s when all the hate started in this country, Rush: When Ted Kennedy did what he did to them two fine men. That’s when all the hate started in this country, and Ted Kennedy, what he did to their families and them, that’s when it come. It didn’t come from talk radio. It come from Ted Kennedy’s mouth the way he did them fine people. And that upsets the hell out of me, Rush.
RUSH: Well, a lot of people are upset today for a host of reasons. Chris Matthews (laughs) said, ‘Barack Obama is the last Kennedy brother.’ That Ted Kennedy passed the torch to Barack Obama. You can’t get more ridiculous. The bloody Marys had to be flowing over at NBC and MSNBC today with some of the stuff that they’re saying. The talk about when the hate started, why is there so much? The liberals know. They’re the architects of it. Actually, it’s an interesting point that you make. I was going to try to avoid this today but you people are revved up about this today — and of course, Snerdley, is not helping the cause at all here by virtue of his call screening. Let’s see what’s next, Vienna, Virginia, this is Kim. You’re next, hello and welcome to the program.
CALLER: Hi.
RUSH: Hey.
CALLER: So good to talk to you. I’m a first-time caller in terms of getting through. Dittos to you and thank you for all you do, Rush.
RUSH: Thank you, ma’am, very much.
CALLER: My comments today focus on I believe that he accessed not just excellent Senate health care through an insurance bill but also through cash-pay alternative medicine. Our family has benefited from alternative medicine from the standpoint, some of the treatments that we’ve heard that the Kennedy families have used, but those are the same kinds of treatments and alternatives that will probably be outlawed by health care reform, and it’s been interesting the kind of problems our family’s had. By choosing to go to doctors that we have a relationship that we pay those physicians directly, we find it at a quarter of the cost that it’s billed by insurance. And we’ve had just amazing results. It kind of is interesting that Kennedy lived over a year with brain cancer. How many other people have those kinds of results?
RUSH: Well, now, that’s a medical question I can’t answer. I don’t know about the severity of the tumor. We only were told various things in the media. You know, Bob Novak did not live quite as long as Ted Kennedy did. We were told he had the same kind of tumor.
CALLER: Mmm-hmm.
RUSH: But the question — and we don’t know what treatment Senator Kennedy was using. It was private. See, that’s the whole thing. It was a private matter for Senator Kennedy. Obviously the family had the money that most families don’t have, to go out and seek the best care.
CALLER: But we would assume that that would be a terribly high cost. My point is that the cost goes down dramatically whenever the middleman: the insurance industry, the government — All the paperwork that’s required for the government, I was just seeing a physician —
RUSH: No, that is an excellent point. It’s an excellent point. I’ll tell you a little personal story. Two or three years ago I came back from Mexico, Puerto Vallarta, and I had a delayed 30-day reaction. I got some sort of intestinal bug. So I went to the hospital here and I knew they were going to admit me ’cause they just do. So I got admitted, they did the tests, and they thought the worst at first. They finally in the CAT scan found a little bug in there. I started taking the antibiotics to get rid of it. I told them when I checked in the hospital, said, ‘I’m going to pay cash. I’ll just give you a credit card here.’
‘Oh, really?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well!’
That knocked 40% off the cost by giving them a credit card, paying for the whole thing. Just, ‘Here, charge me for whatever number of days I’m going to be here.’ It knocked 40% off the cost. This is the point that so many people on our side have been making, that medical costs can come down with the simple capitalist principle. You have the direct relationship between the product supplier and the customer. In this case, the doctor, the hospital and the patient. So your point is well taken. All the middlemen in here, insurance companies or whatever. You blame it on the insurance companies, but this all got started when the federal government wanted to get involved. Remember, folks, the left has wanted nationalized health care since FDR, because it’s the simplest, direct route to total power over people that they can get. It’s ball game.
Once they have national health care and you have to go to the government for your insurance, your care, or whatever, they own you. And they’ve been trying for this for as long as I’ve been alive and longer. And they are dangerously close to it right now. Dangerously close. They’re being beaten back, but I’m going to tell you what: They are prepared now in the Senate to go the route of reconciliation. They are prepared to turn Senate rules upside down in order to get it passed over there. They are willing to go against the wishes of a clear majority of the American people on this. They are willing to turn the Senate rules upside down. Reconciliation means 51 votes, a simple majority, and it’s only to be used to pass a budget because that’s a constitutional requirement. They have twice in the past rejected reconciliation on health care bills, the Senate has.
If they go the reconciliation route, it’s a testament to one thing, it’s a recognition of one thing: that they have lost the issue, that the American people don’t want it and that they can’t get their 60 votes. And they’ve got a problem now with 60 votes because they have a vacant Senate seat with the passing of Senator Kennedy. Now, let’s revisit something else about this that’s interesting. Remember it was either early this week or late last week that we heard that Senator Kennedy had sent an impassioned letter to the speaker of the Massachusetts legislature asking him to change the law to allow the governor to appoint a replacement immediately. What was fascinating about this was that Senator Kennedy was asking for his own law to be changed.
It was back in 2004, when everybody assumed that Senator Kerry would be elected president, and Mitt Romney was the Republican governor so Senator Kennedy changed the law. Not wanting the governor to appoint a replacement for Senator Kerry, Senator Kennedy asked the Massachusetts legislature to pass a law saying a special election would take place in five months. That is the current law. Special election in five months. So it was last week Senator Kennedy goes back and says, ‘Hey,’ in essence, ‘scrap that law that I asked you to pass in 2004. Go back to the way it was ’cause now we got a Democrat governor, and after I pass away, a Democrat governor can appoint a Democrat to replace me.’ We’ll keep our 60 seats in the Senate. Now they don’t have 60, and what do you bet that law is going to be changed in honor of Ted Kennedy?
What do you bet…? The Massachusetts legislature is out. They come back after Labor Day. What do you bet they’ll come back before Labor Day or they’ll come back first thing after Labor Day and in honor of Senator Kennedy, change the law again back to the way it was? So now they have a Democrat governor and go ahead and have him appoint a replacement for Senator Kennedy so the Democrats get their 60 votes back? I wouldn’t be surprised. I mean, it’s all politics and power with these people, and I wouldn’t put anything past them on that score. But, the bottom line, ladies and gentlemen, is they’re not even going to go the 60 votes route. They’re making no bones about it, they’re going to go reconciliation.
Fifty-one votes. This is the greatest illustration they’ve lost the issue, but it doesn’t matter what you want and don’t want. They’re going to do what they have to, the Democrats are, to force this down our throats. So you show up at these town halls. You keep doing that. You keep expressing your outrage about this. I mean, there are so many things wrapped up in this health care bill: insuring illegal immigrants, maybe immigration reform. It’s all tied together. Every one of their agenda items is tied together. And now the senator’s passing is going to give them the opportunity to use the sympathy play to get as much done in his name as possible — and I say to you again: If they pass a health care bill like they have on the table right now and put his name on it, it is the greatest insult to his memory and what he stood for in his life they could ever come up with.