RUSH: A little bit about something I brought up in Philadelphia last night: health care. I’ve talked about it in a similar vein on this program, but I had the occasion recently to meet with another liberal, a liberal chick. This liberal chick had this book on self-reliance, and she’s reading passages to me, and I was thinking to myself, ‘What is a liberal doing with a book on self-reliance?’ So I’m thinking she can’t be as liberal as she thinks — and truly she is moving, even though she doesn’t know it. How could she not be, being with me a couple of hours? At any rate, as she read me some of these passages on self-reliance, I said, ‘Let me ask you a question. Where is self-reliance in the debate in this country over health care.’
‘What do you mean?’
I said, ‘Well, why is it…?’ and I asked the audience in Philadelphia this last night. I said, ‘Why is it that of all the needs in life, all of the needs — not wants, all of the needs — that we have in this country, how is it that we’re close to 50% of the American people who think it’s somebody else’s job to provide it for them? They’re self-reliant when it comes to buying their homes. They’re self-reliant when it comes to buying their cars, self-reliant when it comes to buying their lawn mowers, self-reliant when it comes to buying their televisions, self-reliant when it comes to buying hotel rooms, self-reliant when it comes to buying food, self-reliant when it comes to buying hardware supplies. Why is it that so many Americans now think that health care and insurance, is something they don’t have to be self-residential about? Does this trouble you?’
The answer I got was, ‘Well, you know, I really think we ought to provide health coverage for the poor because they’re overtaxing emergency rooms and that’s raising the price for everyone.’
I said, ‘Don’t give me that. Answer the question. Just answer the question. You’re going full bore here on self-reliance. This is good. Tell me why self-reliance gets thrown out the window when it comes to health care. I’ll tell you why. It’s politics! For years, and years, and years, Democrats and liberals have been telling people that health care is a constitutional right, that the government is supposed to provide it,’ and I said, ‘The reason that they do this is because they want to control and they want to have as many people as possible dependent on them for the control they want over people,’ and, of course, this is where the conversation started to break down, but at least I made the point, which leads me to the next story here in the Stack of Stuff. A Rasmussen poll. I have said we are approaching mob rule. Once we get to the point that, say, 55% of the American people think that health care should be ‘free,’ paid for by somebody else, then we’re nearing mob rule. How are we going to stop that? Rasmussen poll: ‘Half of Americans support the notion of providing health care for free to all Americans, even though…’ Listen to this, now: ‘even though they expect it will reduce the overall quality of care, increase the overall cost, and increase their personal costs.’ What a bunch of lamebrains, if this is true — and the Rasmussen people are not cranks.
How do you go from providing health care ‘for free’ to expecting your personal costs will go up? How can your personal costs go up if it’s free? Besides that, they say they’ll go for it even if it will reduce the overall quality of care and increase the cost. However, the support for free health care breaks down, falls dramatically ‘if the plan requires everybody with insurance to change their coverage and join a program administered by the government.’ There is a silver lining in this dark cloud. ‘That’s consistent with a large body of research suggesting strong resistance to any proposal requiring people to switch from the current health insurance.’ Folks, let me clue you in about something. You may not have a choice if Mrs. Clinton gets her way, and I point you back to this S-CHIP thing. This S-CHIP thing is no longer about kids. It’s about putting more and more people under a federal program. And Mrs. Clinton has said if her new health care plan is indoctrinated the way she wants or introduced, she’s going to let people keep their individual insurance, but she’s also going to have government programs, too, and she’s also said you might have to have health insurance when you go to a job interview. Well, if you can’t afford it, you go to the government and get it. That’s how you go get a job.
The point is that with the government competing with the private sector, the private sector is going to take it on the chin, and people are going to feel the need to leave because prices are going to continue to rise and so forth because the government’s going to affect supply and demand being involved in the mix — and, down the road, the objective is to force the private sector out on its own. Make them just give up, as in businesses saying like the automakers, ‘We can’t survive if $2,000 of every car is priced for health care, and we can’t continue to pay people that are no longer working for us.’ And the government comes along, ‘Well, we’ll take over your health care for you.’ The government says that, and the companies say, ‘Good!’ These CEOs are not dumb when it comes to their bottom line. ‘Let the government take it over, and so this is how it’s going to happen.’ It won’t happen immediately. It’s a stealth program. Look, the old Soviets, folks, they were very patient. They had goals to get something done five years, ten years, 100 years, whatever it took. You know, the old saying: Take two steps forward. If you have to go one step back, now and then, you do it, but you keep making progress. They don’t do things in four-year increments, eight-year increments. The liberals have been at this for a long time, and they’re going to keep at it, so this is one of the stealth techniques that they’re going to employ.