RUSH: I mentioned early today that Harry Reid had let slip that the health care bill was actually going to cost $2 trillion. Here is how it happened. This was on the Senate floor yesterday in Washington.
REID: The senior senator from New Hampshire, he talked about CBO saying there could be $54 billion saved each year if we put caps on medical malpractice and put some restrictions, tort reform, $54 billion. Sounds like a lot of money, doesn’t it, Mr. President? The answer is yes. But, remember, we’re talking about $2 trillion, $54 billion compared to $2 trillion. You can do the math; we can all do the math. It’s a very small percent.
RUSH: This is how he’s going about saying no tort reform, (imitating Reid) ‘No, $54 billion, we wouldn’t even notice it, it’s a rounding error. We’re not going to have tort reform, a $2 trillion bill, Mr. President, tort reform, $54 billion, no, no, no, no.’ I mean these guys are just… (laughing) but there you have it. The real point of that is $2 trillion. Have you heard that said anywhere in any CBO report of the House bill or of the Senate bills or these five pieces of paper that are running around? In fact, from Cybercast News Service: ‘The Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), claimed it posted the ‘full text’ of its health care reform bill, ‘America’s Healthy Future Act,’ on its website. But when users clicked the link to read the proposed law, they could only access a 259-page document that included summaries of both current law and the proposed legislation — or what some senators called a ‘plain English’ version of the bill. The actual ‘legislative language’ of the bill — the words that would become the law of the land if the bill were enacted — is not available to the public and apparently has not even been written.’
A giant scam took place in the Senate Finance Committee. There is no bill. The CBO scored a draft estimate. There is no legislative bill yet, and here they’re talking about merging this bill with something on the Senate floor. The original plan — I told you this three weeks ago, folks — the original plan was to take this Finance Committee bill and merge it with the bill that came out of the Harkin committee and then take that right over to the House and have it rubber-stamped, no conference committee, and then sent on to Obama to sign. Steny Hoyer, said I think sometime last night or yesterday, might have been this morning, Steny Hoyer in the House said, ‘Whoa, wait a minute, from what we’re seeing here there’s a whole lot of differences in that Senate bill and our bill and I do not think that there’s not going to be a conference report.’ Meaning, he says the idea to sail that thing through here without us having a hand in it ain’t going to fly. So he said, ‘We’re going to have to conference this,’ which is going to slow the whole thing down even more and it will bring some of the process into daylight. They’ll try to hide most of it, but some of what’s being negotiated in the conference will come out. Now, let’s go back to Dingy Harry in Washington at a press conference. He wagged his finger at the Republicans.
REID: I appeal to the Republicans in the Senate, ‘Come join us. We want health care reform; we want to do it with you.’ We’re going to do it with them or without them.
RUSH: (laughing) You don’t need ’em, Senator, you just can’t get 60 of your own people. I’ll tell you what, you don’t know it, folks, but the left-wing radical websites are livid at Harry Reid and think he’s chickening out. He keeps talking about needing the Republicans or doing it with Republicans and threatening to do it without the Republicans and they know that he doesn’t need any Republicans — he doesn’t need ’em. Especially if they go the reconciliation route, they don’t need anything but 51 votes. So they want to continue to portray the Republicans — I can’t tell you the last time I heard a Republican say anything about this on television. I’m not watching a lot of TV, but — well, Olympia — I mean, yeah, but that was after the vote. My point is I don’t hear Republicans with any consistency opposing the thing. If they’re saying it, it’s not getting covered. All I hear is Democrats complaining that the Republicans are standing in the way in the Senate. I’m hearing the same thing in the House. ‘Ah, these Republicans are not wanting to partner with us here, bipartisanship and so forth.’ They ought not, there’s no reason for it. By the way, I mentioned earlier the insurance companies are the new villains in a long list of villains the Democrats have created in order to pass various legislation. Yesterday, Dingy Harry at his press conference.
REID: Just this week the insurance lobby released a dishonest report on health care costs. The Consumer Union and many others quickly discredited this report as it deserved to be discredited. Who should be trusted on this issue, on what’s in the best interests of consumers, the insurance industry or an organization like Consumers Union that’s been protecting consumers since 1936? That’s a pretty clear overwhelming vote for the Consumers Union.
RUSH: PriceWaterhouse did this. PriceWaterhouse was commissioned to do this and so far their reputation hasn’t been assailed but that’s right around the corner. And the fact is they came up with, ‘Hey, you know, this bill is going to add $4,000 to the average premium cost to the family of four over whatever next period of years down the road.’ ‘Oh no, a false report.’ Dingy Harry, what’s false and illegitimate and corrupt and has no representation to the truth is you and your Senate Finance Committee bill and everything else that you’re doing in the Senate. What you’re engaging in is a corrupt fraud scam on the American people with virtually every bit of legislation you’re coming up with. And there are people trying to hold these people accountable, there are people trying to get the truth out, and look at them, every one that pops up the Democrats run out with some kind of weapon to try to destroy ’em and clear the playing field. And that’s where we are. No greater illustration of liberty versus tyranny than what is happening in just the past nine months since President Obama was immaculated.