{"id":13286,"date":"2013-02-07T17:36:44","date_gmt":"2013-02-07T17:36:44","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2013-02-07T17:36:44","modified_gmt":"2013-02-07T17:36:44","slug":"sleepy_obama_sits_through_prayer_breakfast_where_dr_benjamin_carson_blasts_obamacare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2013\/02\/07\/sleepy_obama_sits_through_prayer_breakfast_where_dr_benjamin_carson_blasts_obamacare\/","title":{"rendered":"Sleepy Obama Sits Through Prayer Breakfast Where Dr. Benjamin Carson Blasts Obamacare"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Listen<\/a><\/p>\n

RUSH: As for Obama, he went to the National Prayer Breakfast today. I was reading a blog, the White House Dossier, a guy who used to be part of the White House press corps. Keith Koffler is his name. I didn\u2019t see Obama at the prayer breakfast today, but he said Obama was barely awake. You know, Obama doesn\u2019t show until ten o\u2019clock in the morning. He\u2019s a nighthawk. He\u2019s a night owl. Obama stays up late and he doesn\u2019t get up early. So this guy\u2019s describing Obama at the prayer breakfast as having heavy eyelids and chewing Nicorette to deal with his nicotine addiction. He was openly chewing gum and wiping his eyes as though trying to remove the morning crustiness. <\/p>\n

You ever have that happen to you, the morning crustiness in your eye and have to wipe that out?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what he described Obama as doing. Koffler said Obama\u2019s remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast were perfunctory and listless, as though he really didn\u2019t want to be there but has to do this kind of thing. So we have some sound bites from this. Let\u2019s go to \u2019em right now. This is Obama in Washington at the National Prayer Breakfast. Now, it didn\u2019t start \u2019til something like ten or 10:30 but apparently he had to get up early. He had to be somewhere at 7:30, I guess, for the actual breakfast itself. In the White House Dossier piece, Keith Koffler makes the point that — well, I inferred from his piece that — Obama\u2019s not out of bed by then. <\/p>\n

So he was not entirely cogent. He just wasn\u2019t there. Let\u2019s give a listen. We have two sound bites of Obama.<\/p>\n

OBAMA: It is always just a wonderful event.<\/p>\n

RUSH: (snoring)<\/p>\n

OBAMA: But I do worry sometimes that as soon as we leave the prayer breakfast, everything we\u2019ve been talkin\u2019 about —<\/p>\n

RUSH: (snoring)<\/p>\n

OBAMA: — the whole time of the prayer breakfast —<\/p>\n

RUSH: (snoring)<\/p>\n

OBAMA: — seems to be forgotten on the same day of the prayer breakfast. <\/p>\n

AUDIENCE: (smattering of laughter) <\/p>\n

OBAMA: I mean —<\/p>\n

RUSH: (snoring)<\/p>\n

OBAMA: — you\u2019d like to think that that the shelf life wasn\u2019t so short! I go back to the Oval Office (snickers), and I start watching the cable news networks, and it\u2019s like we didn\u2019t pray.<\/p>\n

RUSH: This is unreal. <\/p>\n

I love this. So prayer doesn\u2019t work, and this proves it. <\/p>\n

Obama goes to the prayer breakfast, and everybody else goes to the prayer breakfast. It\u2019s a wonderful event. And it\u2019s all about him, you see. The National Prayer Breakfast… (interruption) Oh, don\u2019t believe that when he says he doesn\u2019t watch cable news. He watches it, and he has people assigned to watch it, just like I do. (Obama interpretation) “It\u2019s a wonderful event, the National Prayer Breakfast. It\u2019s always about me every year, and I enjoy coming for that reason, but I do worry sometimes that as soon as we leave the prayer breakfast, everything we\u2019ve been talking about the whole prayer breakfast seems to be forgotten, on the same day of the prayer breakfast.<\/p>\n

“I mean, you\u2019d like to think that the shelf life of the prayer wasn\u2019t short. I go back to the Oval Office, and I start watching cable news, and it\u2019s like we didn\u2019t pray at all.” So God\u2019s not listening. (interruption) Well, I think everybody else is praying to Obama, but gods don\u2019t pray. They sit there and listen to the prayers. But, anyway, can you imagine any other president ripping prayer, even in a joke way? (Obama impression) “Well, we all come up here and — and we pray, and (chuckling) it doesn\u2019t even work! It doesn\u2019t even last the whole day. I go back to White House, turn on TV, and I\u2019m being criticized. The National Prayer Breakfast is all about Obama. Here\u2019s the second sound bite…<\/p>\n

OBAMA: That\u2019s what I thought of as I took the oath of office a few weeks ago and touched those Bibles: The comfort that Scripture gave Lincoln and King. Most of all I thought about their humility. Let us retain that humility not just during this hour, but for every hour, and let me suggest that those of us with the most power and influence need to be the most humble.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Right. Like right before you decide to pick somebody off the Kill List and launch the drone. Right! Now, the next speaker is the Johns Hopkins Hospital Pediatric Neurosurgery director, Dr. Benjamin Carson, and this guy rips Obamaism. He ripped into Obamaism at the prayer breakfast with Obama sitting there.<\/p>\n

CARSON: Well, some people say, they say, “Well, that\u2019s not fair because it doesn\u2019t hurt the guy who made $10 billion as much as the guy who made ten.” Where does it say you have to hurt the guy? He just put a billion dollars in the pot!<\/p>\n

AUDIENCE: (applause)<\/line><\/p>\n

CARSON: You know, we don\u2019t need to hurt him. It\u2019s that kind of thinking…<\/p>\n

AUDIENCE: (applause)<\/p>\n

CARSON: It\u2019s that kind of thinking that has resulted in 602 banks in the Cayman Islands. That money needs to be back here, building our infrastructure and creating jobs.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Whoa! Right on. Did you hear that? This guy is talking to Obama. Obama\u2019s sitting there, and Dr. Carson is saying, “People say… ‘Well, that\u2019s not fair because it doesn\u2019t hurt the guy who made $10 billion as much as the guy who made ten.\u2019 Where does it say you have to hurt the guy? He just put a billion dollars in the pot!” So this neurosurgeon is speaking out in favor of the 1%, the 5%, the 10% who are actually paying the freight in this country via income taxes. They\u2019re the ones actually paying the freight. What do we gotta hurt \u2019em for? I mean, they\u2019re already putting money in the pot. Why do we gotta hurt \u2019em? <\/p>\n

He\u2019s exactly right. And then he says: You want to know why we got 602 banks in the Caymans with American money? Because they\u2019re running away. They don\u2019t want to be hurt. <\/p>\n

I love this guy. He wasn\u2019t finished, either.<\/p>\n

CARSON: Here\u2019s my solution: When a person is born, give him a birth certificate, an electronic medical record, and a health savings account to which money can be contributed — pretax — from the time you\u2019re born \u2019til the time you die. When you die, you can pass it on to your family members, so that when you\u2019re 85 years old and you got six diseases, you\u2019re not trying to spend up everything. You\u2019re happy to pass it on and there\u2019s nobody talking about death panels.<\/p>\n

AUDIENCE: (laughter and applause)<\/p>\n

CARSON: Number one. And also, for the people who were indigent who don\u2019t have any money we can make contributions to their HSA each month because we already have this huge pot of money. Instead of sending it to some bureaucracy, let\u2019s put it in their HSAs. Now they have some control over their own health care.<\/line><\/p>\n

RUSH: That is Dr. Benjamin Carson, who is the Johns Hopkins Hospital Pediatric Neurosurgery director, and he has given his recipe there for a health care system the exact opposite of Obamacare. This is at the National Prayer Breakfast today. So you see, these people are out there, and they\u2019re willing to speak up. They need to be encouraged.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Okay, my friends, I want to spend some time here, just a few minutes, on Dr. Benjamin Carson. You don\u2019t hear people speak this way. The Republicans don\u2019t speak this way to Obama. They don\u2019t speak this way about Obama\u2019s policies. Here you have the guy who\u2019s head of neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital at the National Prayer Breakfast. He says, “People say… ‘Well, that\u2019s not fair because it doesn\u2019t hurt the guy who made $10 billion as much as the guy who made ten.\u2019 Where does it say you have to hurt the guy? He just put a billion dollars in the pot!” The guy\u2019s paying the freight. What\u2019s he done? <\/p>\n

His solution to health care: “When a person is born, give him a birth certificate, an electronic medical record, and a health savings account to which money can be contributed — pretax — from the time you\u2019re born \u2019til the time you die.” We\u2019re already spending this money and more anyway. He\u2019s simply talking about reallocating resources. Put it in the hands of the people who are going to spend it. Put them in charge of their own health care. They build it up while they\u2019re young, while they\u2019re children. A nest egg gets built in their health savings accounts. It\u2019s pretax. It\u2019s put in this account from the time you\u2019re born \u2019til the time you die.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the equivalent of what would be spent on you in other forms — and when you die, whatever you haven\u2019t used, you can pass on to your family members. Do with it what you want. You can pass it on. You can make it part of your estate. But you are in charge of your health care. You are in charge of how much you spend on it and how much you get and where you go. This reintroduces competition. This reintroduces market forces. This is what brings costs down. So in 43 seconds, the director of neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins gave the answer to Obamacare.<\/p>\n

In 43 seconds. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s not 2700 pages, and it doesn\u2019t enlarge the government.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t hire 16,000 IRS agents, and it covers everybody — and there would probably be money left over after all of this. <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: I\u2019m gonna take advantage of the occasion of these comments by Dr. Benjamin Carson to explain what a health savings account is to people who may not know. Because, you know, we have constant audience expansion and audience growth here. Since the election — well, even prior to that, but — there are people listening here for the first time ever or they\u2019ve been listening for a year or two. So, of course, they haven\u2019t heard everything that you have if you\u2019ve been here for the whole 20, 25 years.<\/p>\n

But this is really profound what this man said at the National Prayer Breakfast. Now, let\u2019s put Obamacare in Column A and just briefly review. It has 2700 pages. The federal government is empowered to eventually make every health care decision for every American. The older Americans get, the less likely the government will authorize spending money to treat them, particularly if they have terminal diseases.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because the government will determine that it\u2019s not worth the money. If somebody is near the life expectancy, and they have a debilitating disease, the government will decide it\u2019s not worth it. This is in Obamacare. The term “death panel” isn\u2019t, but that\u2019s how it works out. This is all in Obamacare. It\u2019s “as the secretary of Health and Human Services shall determine.” There is a board. There is a panel of people.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t know who it\u2019s gonna be, but there is a panel of people who will make decisions on the allocation of health care money which is all gonna come from government. That\u2019s eventually, when this is fully implemented. If your parent or grandparent comes down with a very bad disease late in life, the government may decide it makes no sense to spend the money in treating that disease because the expected number of years left in that person\u2019s life is very few.<\/p>\n

They might think we can spend that money elsewhere on other people or on young people who might be more productive. Now, in a free society, this shouldn\u2019t happen. You need to be in charge, just like when you go rent a hotel room. You buy hotel room where you want, where you can afford, where you want to stay. Same thing with food, same thing with a car, same thing with anything else you buy. You buy it based on what you can afford, based on what you want.<\/p>\n

Of course the American dream is that you continue to work hard and try to improve your standard of living so that you can afford better and more things for you and your family as you go on through life. That\u2019s what\u2019s fundamentally changed, and is in the process of fundamentally changing in our country. Imagine if you had to go to the government for a hotel room. Imagine if you had to go to the government for your food or for your telephone service or anything else, be it a need or a desire.<\/p>\n

The fact that governments, state and federal, are involved in so much of the health care system is he reason why the price has skyrocketed. There isn\u2019t any competition per se. You\u2019re not in charge, and the consumer needs to be in charge of what is spent by that consumer for that consumer. That causes and creates competition for that consumer\u2019s dollar, and that\u2019s how prices are kept affordable. That doesn\u2019t exist in health care today.<\/p>\n

So the Obamacare plan is 2700 pages with a panel that will determine who gets treated and who doesn\u2019t. There are 16,000 new IRS agents to determine whether or not you\u2019re complying with the law by either having an insurance policy or paying a fine or a penalty if you don\u2019t. Virtually every aspect of your health care, the portion of your life dealing with health care is going to be administered by and monitored by government, with you having nothing to do with it — and that just scratches the surface.<\/p>\n

Remember the woman who appeared…? Well, you may not remember. ABC, about three years ago, did a primetime special with the president the East Room of the White House where the president sought to explain his health care plan. There were American citizens in the audience. A woman stood up (an American citizen, folks) and actually asked the president of the United States — not her doctor, not a family member, but the president of the United States (summarized) — “Sir, what about my 100-year-old mother?<\/p>\n

“She has a huge will to live, she\u2019s got a great spirit, but she needs a pacemaker. Will you factor things like spirit and the will to live in determining whether people like my mother will get a pacemaker?” Why is a citizen asking the president of the United States if her mother can have a medical procedure? Sometimes I think I\u2019m the only one who thought that obscene. Well, the president stood up and answered it. He put a smile on his face and said, “No, we can\u2019t take things into account like will to live and spirit.<\/p>\n