RUSH: Here\u2019s Rick in Tuckerton, New Jersey. Back to the phones. Open Line Friday. Great to have you, sir. Hi.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Hey, Rush. How you doing? Mega dittos.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Thank you, sir.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Hey, I\u2019ve been with you since the beginning. I\u2019m really happy and glad I finally got through to you. I was wondering, with this health care talk that\u2019s going on now, I mean, I thought that Trump wanted to get rid of Obamacare. Apparently that\u2019s not what they want to do right away. But if the government was so good at running the health care or dictating health care, why isn\u2019t the VA or the American Indian plan a shining example of what government can do?<\/p>\n
RUSH: Great question. They can\u2019t.<\/p>\n
CALLER: How long is it gonna take before somebody either asks Paul Ryan that or the American people just say, “Why isn\u2019t the VA a shining example?” I mean there is government health care right there staring you in the face. I don\u2019t understand it. I don\u2019t get it.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/650-030917-Complex.jpg\")
RUSH: Your curiosity is such here that you have to have been able to come up with some answers to your question. Let\u2019s set it a different way and let me turn it back at you. You have just demonstrated that when the government administers health care institutions, they\u2019re a disaster, okay?<\/p>\n
CALLER: Yes.<\/p>\n
RUSH: So why do you think they want to continue to exercise that kind of control and power over health care when every example of them doing it is pretty bad?<\/p>\n
CALLER: Because I don\u2019t think it really has anything to do with health care. I think it\u2019s just the redistribution of wealth, the power. That\u2019s all I can think of. I don\u2019t understand how they — if they can\u2019t handle the limited amount of veterans that are in the VA system — and I realize that\u2019s a lot of people, but it\u2019s a limited amount compared to the population of the country, how are they gonna get 300 million people?<\/p>\n
RUSH: Well, but you don\u2019t have to focus just on the VA.<\/p>\n
CALLER: No.<\/p>\n
RUSH: You can look at Medicare and Medicaid. Does anybody want them expanded as the American health care? Well, yes, some people do! They\u2019re the exact people you\u2019re talking about.<\/p>\n
CALLER: I mean, I was listening to Fox & Friends this morning, Geraldo was on, and he was talking about how everybody should have a plan like Medicare and Medicaid. And I\u2019m saying, “Geraldo, what planet are you living on?” And then I realized that he\u2019s the elite. And he doesn\u2019t talk to people like me he just —<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Geraldo-Riverea.jpg\")
RUSH: Geraldo\u2019s not on a planet, he\u2019s in orbit, he\u2019s in perpetual orbit, and that\u2019s just a typical. When Geraldo says that, it makes himself feel so good. And he walks off the set of that show, boy, I feel so good, I sounded so good, and everybody could see what a big heart that I\u2019ve got, so mission accomplished.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Oh, my God.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Well, what do you think liberalism is, in part? About making these people feel good about the messes that they\u2019ve made, all because they care and they have great compassion. And they\u2019re great at using other people\u2019s money, which is what Medicaid and Medicare are, to take care of people and keep \u2019em away from you. If put everyone on Medicaid and Medicare then you can assume they\u2019re gonna have health care, problem solved. You don\u2019t have to hear them complain anymore, you don\u2019t see \u2019em, you don\u2019t run into \u2019em.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Yes. They mean well.<\/p>\n
RUSH: What doesn\u2019t seem to be front and center to me in this, as I have constantly stated, is any trust in the free market. That\u2019s what I don\u2019t see. Now, trying to figure Trump out in all of this, I think we\u2019re gonna need to give Trump time. The thing we have to understand, folks, Donald Trump is not — he may be a political neophyte in terms of experience, but he\u2019s not stupid, and he\u2019s not dumb. And he has a track regard of getting done what he wants done more often than not.<\/p>\n
What he\u2019s up against is a world he\u2019s the never lived in before. Well, he\u2019s been in it on the periphery as a donor and so forth. But now he\u2019s inside the sausage factory, and just like you or me, anybody else outside it looking in, it seems simple to fix this. Just use a little common sense, trust the free market, get the players that have made the mess out of the way — that would be the government — then you get in there, and Trump is probably finding out just how deeply intertwined the tentacles of this are throughout our society.<\/p>\n
And what happens when you remove one tentacle? Yeah. And then you find six more pop up that you didn\u2019t know were there. That nobody knew were there, is how deeply embedded some of this stuff is. My only point to you is, give Trump a little time to figure this out. He knows full well — don\u2019t doubt me — he knows full well people like you are not happy with the way this is going. And he probably isn\u2019t, either.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/650-031017-Rush-Is-Right.jpg\")
And he knows there\u2019s no benefit to him by telling everybody “I reformed health care. We got rid of Obamacare, we\u2019ve replaced it and it\u2019s great” when it isn\u2019t. If it\u2019s close, he might be able to get away with touting it as such. But, folks, there\u2019s a huge obstacle still remaining in this, and until this thing is dealt with, I don\u2019t know how you fix this. And that is this preexisting condition business. We\u2019re talking about reforming health insurance, and when we get to that, we\u2019re not even talking insurance.<\/p>\n
Providing health care for people with preexisting conditions is the equivalent of selling somebody a homeowner\u2019s policy for a hundred dollars while the fire is burning their house down. It just doesn\u2019t happen, yet in health care we\u2019re doing it. And it screws up all of the actuarials. It screws up all the calculations, it screws up all the numbers, it screws everything up. And they\u2019ve gotta find a way to separate that out. Then of course there\u2019s another thing with the Medicaid\/Medicare extension. And then, “What do we do about the mandate, because the mandate is the money generator for this. The mandate –”<\/p>\n
Before the campaign the mandate had to go. That was one of the biggest Obama boondoggles ever. Get it outta there. Now they\u2019re faced with refinancing it, all of a sudden the mandate, well, we might need to sunset that over time, we might not be able to take that all out of there. This is just an illustration of how screwed up the whole system is and what it looks like when a bunch of bureaucrats think they can do it better than the private sector can do it.<\/p>\n
Remember, the American health care system, Obamacare is built on top of it, and the American health care system has been in the process of being corrupted since 1965. We have 50 years of stuff embedded in there that — you might be repealing Obamacare, but you\u2019re not gonna repeal 55 years of stuff. I\u2019m telling you the way they\u2019re looking at it, not the way you and I are.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/RushObamacareTaxesPIX.jpg\"){kind=icon}
But these are people that think government has to have a hand in everything. These are people think, well, the government\u2019s got a hand in here, it\u2019s gotta stay in. People think the government knows better in some instances, the government\u2019s gonna police and cover fairness and all these other things. And Trump is getting a load of this now.<\/p>\n
I think if there\u2019s anybody who can come along and — remember a story earlier about how he\u2019s mounting this charm offensive to get what he wants out of this. And keep in mind, too, what you think you know about this is what you\u2019re reading in the media. So we\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: Nope. Nope. I\u2019m just saying that once you include people with preexisting conditions in the pool with everybody else and then you go get premiums based on that, it\u2019s not gonna work. You just can\u2019t do it because you\u2019re not talking insurance on preexisting conditions; you\u2019re talking welfare. And nobody in Washington has the guts to eliminate coverage for preexisting conditions. But the Democrats don\u2019t want to. That\u2019s exactly the kind of thing they want health care to be.<\/p>\n
They want health care to be a gigantic entitlement program. They don\u2019t want any market forces in it whatsoever. And that happens to be what most of the Washington establishment wants. I guarantee you every time on the campaign trail Trump promised to repeal Obamacare, there have to be tens of thousands of people in Washington who said, “Oh, yeah? Over our dead body.”<\/p>\n
And they\u2019ve been meeting for months on trying to come up with ways to thwart Trump from doing that. And everything else he promised to do during the campaign, such as cut taxes, such as build a wall, such as deport illegal immigrants who shouldn\u2019t be here. They are mounting a defense on offense, and they have been since the campaign. But they really ratcheted the whole thing up since he won.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
So what I thought I would do is share with you various elements of their report here, because they make it sound horrible. (laughing) If this is true, it is a disaster. And if this is true, it will make you wonder, why is anybody on the Republican side doing any of this?<\/p>\n Now, I\u2019m not vouching for it because, my friends, I\u2019m gonna shoot you straight here: I don\u2019t know what I know on this yet. You see, my health care fix, do you know what it is? I\u2019m so simple-minded in these things. I\u2019m not complex at all. I have no desire to run anybody else\u2019s life. I don\u2019t care whether somebody can run theirs or not; that\u2019s their responsibility and their problem. I\u2019m not interested in making sure you don\u2019t screw up other than what I do here, but I do not live under any illusions that I should tell everybody how to live.<\/p>\n So when I come up with solutions to problems or start thinking about solutions for the nation at large, I tend to run toward what I think is the simplest and most effective. My health care reform plan is real simple. For everybody who can, and we would have to have a very, very honest assessment of that, you buy your own. You can either get it from your employer as part of your deal there, or you don\u2019t and you go out and make your own deal. You\u2019ll be able to make your own deal because the government\u2019s not involved and there are insurance companies all over this country selling health insurance, and they\u2019re competing with one another, and you buy what you need.<\/p>\n And if you\u2019re 25 and you don\u2019t want to buy the kind of health insurance where you go to the doctor 15 times a year, you don\u2019t. If all you want to buy is insurance for when you have a car crash or some other calamity, that\u2019s what you buy, and you\u2019re not responsible for anybody else. And everybody else does the same thing. You buy what you want. And then what you can\u2019t buy, you insure. And that would be catastrophic, terminal diseases, long-term care. If you want to invest when you are 25 years old in a retirement home that has health care, you buy it then and start making payments on it. Your responsibility, you do it.<\/p>\n “But Mr. Limbaugh, Mr. Limbaugh, what about the people that can\u2019t afford it?” That\u2019s where we are a compassionate country. And people who can\u2019t, we have a plan, but we\u2019re not gonna assume nobody can pay for it on their own anymore! And I\u2019m not saying decide whether you want an iPhone or health care. And I\u2019m not saying that. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s what Jason Chaffetz was saying, either, but he\u2019s been raked over the phones and still is being, by the way, by Republicans. Breitbart does it here.<\/p>\n And even now, with government running it, we don\u2019t even promise people that they\u2019ll get the best. And how do you know what the best is anyway until there\u2019s competition and the best is determined by who has the most customers and who sells the most service and who does the best job by virtue of the market telling everybody that?<\/p>\n Now, I imagine to some people this sounds very, what would you say, Mr. Snerdley? Harsh? Cold? Well, it isn\u2019t at all. It\u2019s just an acknowledgment that health care is anything else you buy, but I think in my technique, in my plan, the prices would — because they would have to — would start plummeting left and right. My plan would be introducing market competition. If people are in the health care business, you think doctors are doing what they do just for the service? You think people that run hospitals don\u2019t want to make money? Everybody wants to make money in everything they do. And competition is one of the greatest ways of weeding out the good and the bad, and it\u2019s a way of making everybody better.<\/p>\n People do this a lot, and I often reject it but I\u2019m gonna do it anyway. When I was a kid, I went to the dentist when necessary, left the dentist\u2019s office, he sent a bill. Parents paid the bill, that was it. Same thing with the pediatrician. There were house calls, although I\u2019m not making a stink about that. The point is, you could afford it. If it was something catastrophic, then of course there was insurance available or you made a deal with the hospital to pay it off over time, what have you. People are understanding. If you can\u2019t pay for it, you pay for it in installments or what have you. But why did that system fade away?<\/p>\n It\u2019s easy to go back, “Well, yeah, Rush, but that\u2019s a different time than what we have today.” Well, what\u2019s made it different today than the way it was then? And I would argue it\u2019s a bunch of people dipping their hands in it and being involved in it who are not in the business. Trying to buy votes with it, trying to insure and secure power with it and trying to basically tell people, “You know what? You don\u2019t have to be responsible. We\u2019ll do that for you. Just vote for us.”<\/p>\n Well, here\u2019s the Breitbart piece<\/a>, ladies and gentlemen. And measured against my plan, this is hieroglyphics. Measured against my plan, this is like trying to learn a foreign language. And not just learn the language, but then learn all of the dialects and all the hidden meaning with the use of slang and so forth. It\u2019s impossible.<\/p>\n “Seven Reasons Why Obamacare 2.0 Is All But Guaranteed to Impose Crushing Costs on Voters, Hurt Trump\u2019s Base, and Hand Power Back to the Democrats.” Okay, that\u2019s the headline of the Breitbart piece. Let me ask you a question. I mean, the way I react when I see a headline like this, if it\u2019s this bad, how in the world can the people in charge of it not know it\u2019s this bad? If it is this bad, then why do the Republicans want to hand power back to the Democrats? Why do the Republicans want to hurt Trump\u2019s base?<\/p>\n Now, that I can answer. Why do Republicans want to impose crushing costs on voters? Does any of this make sense? And why do Republicans want to hand power back to the Democrats? And why does Trump want to do that? Trump supposedly signed on to this. Okay, so let\u2019s take this incrementally. Now, at the bottom of this piece is perhaps the most important aspect of story with nothing to do with health care.<\/p>\n “Sixty percent of adults are ‘hopeful and optimistic\u2019 about America\u2019s future.” As asserted in this story, that\u2019s from polling data. Sixty percent of adults are hopeful and optimistic? Now, as the Breitbart writer, Katie McHugh is her name, writer of the story. She says, “That\u2019s a precious opportunity, one that shouldn\u2019t be wasted. ‘The issue now is about Americans looking to not get f–ed over. If we deliver, we\u2019ll get 60 percent of the white vote, and 40 percent of the black and Hispanic vote and we\u2019ll govern for 50 years,\u2019 White House Chief strategist Steve Bannon said during a November interview. ‘That\u2019s what the Democrats missed\u2026 They lost sight of what the world is about.'” Bannon, chief strategist for Trump.<\/p>\n So Breitbart is basing this story on Bannon, who used to be their executive chairman. Yes, he still is on leave — about how the American people are tired of being screwed over; and if the Trump team delivers, they\u2019re just gonna clean up, and they\u2019re gonna end up politically controlling this country for the next 50 years away from the Democrats.<\/p>\n Number 1. “The bill\u2019s provisions increase healthcare costs for Trump voters in critical states.”<\/p>\n Okay. How is that? “As an analysis conducted by the Washington Post shows, voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin will see their tax credits decrease under Obamacare 2.0. ‘If you\u2019re a 40-year-old making $75,000 a year, you\u2019re going to get a 75 percent or higher increase to your tax credits, a beneficial situation for you,\u2019 the Post explains. ‘If, however, you\u2019re a 60-year-old making $30,000 a year, you\u2019re going to see a reduction in those tax credits (unless you live in Upstate New York or Massachusetts or parts of central Texas).\u2019<\/p>\n “In other words, senior citizens — who vote regularly in mid-term elections — will see their healthcare costs increase under the Republicans\u2019 bill. Plus, Obamacare 2.0 phases out credits for people who start earning more than $75,000. Why? Because screw the voters and they\u2019re on their own? What a great message to send to the middle class!”<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/BRIET.jpg\")
<\/a>RUSH: I have here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers a news story that I just printed out<\/a>, and it is from Trumpbart. Well, Breitbart. Now, would you all agree with me that Breitbart as a website and as an institution was all-in for Donald Trump during the campaign? You would agree with that? Well, they are not happy with the Obamacare repeal and replace. They are not happy with this at all.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/650-031017-Rushcare.jpg\")
To me, there ought be no guarantee, just like no hotel is the same, health care, where is it written that no matter where you go to get health care it\u2019s just as good as where anybody else goes? You know that\u2019s not the case already. You know there are places that specialize in treating cancer that are better at it by reputation than other places, but not everybody gets to go to those places. It\u2019s just the way it is.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/BANNONTIME-227x300.jpg\")
See, it sounds so simplistic that it can\u2019t be done, and of course measured against what we have now, it is too drastic. But how many of you would sit by knowing what you know that has happened to health care, how many of you would sit by and let the government come in and start determining automobile sales? Why did it happen in health care? Well, many answers to that. Prices started skyrocketing here or there, quickly zoomed past what normal people could afford on a normal basis.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Health-Care-Obamacare-Failure-B2.jpg\")
Okay. “Seven Reasons Why Obamacare 2.0 Is All But Guaranteed to Impose Crushing Costs on Voters, Hurt Trump\u2019s Base, and Hand Power Back to the Democrats.”<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/rush_white_140-225x300.jpg\")
So Breitbart claims here that this Obamacare repeal and replacement bill actually targets senior citizens in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin and makes their tax credits less effective and raises their health care costs. Those are three blue states that Trump won. Why would the Republicans do that? Do you believe that they have? Do you think that\u2019s in the bill? The Washington Post says it is, and Breitbart\u2019s accepting it.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/ObamacareRushObamacareFight.jpg\")
So you get a subsidy for it, but it\u2019s only to help you pay for a specific thing. Tax credits, however — you can\u2019t compare subsidies and tax credits because tax credits end up with more money in your pocket — they ideally lead to additional discretionary spending. But in the context of health care, tax credits end up in the back pocket of the person who gets them theoretically providing an opportunity for more competition, because with tax credits people are more able to shop around for health care, which theoretically drives costs down.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Obamacare-Trump-TV-021916-C.jpg\")
You can remember back in those days employers complaining about it, and they couldn\u2019t wait to off-load that. Here came Obamacare with an opportunity to do just that and let the government take over. Now, the premise behind Obamacare should have been, how do we just reduce costs? But that\u2019s not what Obama wanted. Obama wanted to move the whole system to the federal government, eventually make it single payer, where nobody worries about cost except they theoretically do as they ration and deny certain people, but in reality they don\u2019t.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/hqdefault.jpg\")
But this bill, the point is that the Obamacare 2.0 wants to extend tax credits to individuals like the businesses, not subsidies. Obamacare is all subsidies. Well, not all, but it\u2019s big subsidies. That means somebody else just paying for it, you\u2019re not. You never see the money, but you\u2019re totally dependent on it. Tax credits end up you having a little bit more money in your back pocket, which, if we\u2019re gonna start applying degrees of conservatism, that\u2019s a pretty conservative thing to do, have a policy where people get to keep more of their money in this.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/ObamaHealthcare2.jpg\")
Government, people like Obama, Hillary, they love subsidies because it makes you dependent. You never see the money. You go fill out the form to sign up and enroll for Obamacare, your income is automatically gonna qualify you for a subsidy \u2019cause the damn stuff is so expensive, so you qualify for your subsidy, and it\u2019s gotten to the point where if you make less than 75 grand, you can\u2019t have health care in this country without a subsidy.<\/p>\n