RUSH: Paducah, Kentucky, and this is Sam. Sam, thanks for holding on. I appreciate it.
CALLER: That’s okay. Good afternoon, Rush. I’m very glad to be here.
RUSH: Thank you. So am I.
CALLER: I just wanted to bring up the fact that Obama and company cannot lose this fight. If they are ever to realize their dream of some sort of ‘progressive,’ socialist system, they must get control of the health care system.
RUSH: Yes.
CALLER: Not only because of the financial value of the system but health care has a tremendous symbolic value to them.
RUSH: Wait. It may have a symbolic value, but it’s far more than symbolic to them. It is substantive.
CALLER: Oh, absolutely!
RUSH: It is the regulation of every citizen’s life to the max.
CALLER: That’s the point. And if anything were to prevent that — for instance, Congress taking a hand and passing some legislation that would actually help the health care system work better without the government control, they’re sunk. They’ve got a good start on taking over the economy; they got the ‘stimulus’ bill by without even working with Congress. Another group quote wrote it. They got that through. Now health care is next. If they don’t get this, they’re in really bad shape. That’s why they’re doing all these silly things that they’re doing, saying these silly things, and Obama is running around like a chicken trying to do whatever he can do to salvage this. I don’t think they can do it.
RUSH: Well, you know (sigh), I am not going to say that this is dead.
CALLER: No, it’s not dead.
RUSH: Because we’re just eight months in or seven months in. This guy’s got four years here, three and a half more years to try to get this.
CALLER: Oh, they’ll try again. Yeah.
RUSH: Let me tell you: If they appear to do something that is a cave-in to the public wishes, I’m telling you right now it’s not going to be a cave-in. It’s going to be a lie. Everybody needs to keep a sharp eye on what Max Baucus and this Gang of Six are doing in the Senate to come up with this compromise bill. Because what they’re going to do, what they’re working on is coming up with language that’s going to end up making people think that health insurance is going to be much cheaper. They’re going to limit how much of a deductible you have to pay. They’re going to say they’re going to limit your copay. There will be out-of-pocket maximums that you have to pay, and the illusion is going to be that, ‘Wow! Wow! They finally got a bill that makes sense. I’m going to get my insurance and it’s going to cost me less.’
What’s going to happen, though, it’s going to cause premiums to skyrocket, and people are going to agree to it thinking, ‘Well, my costs are going to go down.’ And some Republicans are going to think, ‘Oh, wow! I can join this now because costs are going to go down,’ but the point is we’re going to end up with more uninsured than ever before. And that result, the more uninsured, will be the clarion call for a couple years from now: ‘Okay, we gotta have national insurance now! Our Senate plan didn’t quite work out as we intended and so we got more uninsured than ever before and we have no choice but now to get a public option.’ They’re going to go about this one way or the other. I tell you it’s not dead. That’s why I said yesterday we’re going to have to be vigilant as we can be. Now, your point that if they lose this, they lose their rationale?
They may lose their rationale, but they’re not going away. See, I actually think that if they get this, ultimately they’re dead. Nobody is going to want to live in a country run by these people with their vision. If they get it, there is going to be a revolt at some point down the line, because people do not want this. Once they experience unadulterated fascism — once health care is passed, there’s a government option and private insurance is history and gone — people aren’t going to put up with it. Not in this country. And unless they do something about the Second Amendment and get guns out of everybody’s hands, there’s going to be hell to pay. So I think they lose either way, but we lose if they win. We lose for years if they win. Their rationale goes away if they lose. But you’re right. This is the building block, the building block for a fascist America, the building block for an ever-expanding, growing government.
That’s why that speech to these kids yesterday infuriated me. He doesn’t believe any of that. He doesn’t believe personal responsibility. He doesn’t. Let him give that speech to the country at large. He doesn’t believe a word of it. It’s all lies. Oh, and the AP is reporting that his speech tonight will be 35 minutes, and it will quote, ‘answer all the major questions on the contentious issue that has become Obama’s top domestic priority,’ health care. He’s gonna answer all the major questions. Well, now, that’s some challenge! He’s going to answer all the major questions. Basically what he’s going to have to go out there and do and say that everything you’ve heard that you say that’s in the House bill isn’t true. Can he pull this off anymore? Listen, grab sound bite number six first. Then we’ll go back to five. On Good Morning America today the cohost Robin Roberts interviewed Obama. She said, ‘Is there a new approach that you’re taking to getting your message across?’
OBAMA: I, out of an effort to give Congress the ability to do their thing and not, uh, step, uh — step on their toes, uh, probably, eh, left too m-much ambiguity out there which allowed then opponents of reform to come in and to fill up the air avenues with a lot of nonsense. Everything from this ridiculous idea that we’re setting up death panels to false notions that, uh, this was designed to provide health insurance to illegal immigrants — and then this broader notion of a government takeover of health care, which none of the bills that worked their way through Congress ever envisioned.
RUSH: For crying out loud, this is just unbelievable. I don’t think he’s read the House bill. That’s why he’s going to go out there and ‘answer all the major questions.’ Everything he says is not there, is there. Now, of course they’re not called death panels. I’ll give you the analogy I gave you yesterday. The war on poverty. Do you find anywhere in the legislation that set up the war on poverty: ‘And, by the way, we intend to destroy the black family’? No! Of course it’s not in there. But it did. The federal government became the father, with all the AFDC, and women were popping babies out — poor women, not just blacks, poor women all over the country. It just busted up families. To this day it’s a huge problem. Now, the phrase ‘death panels’ is not in the House bill, but you’re going to cut Medicare, he says. He told the woman with the hundred-year-old mother, ‘No, we don’t think we would calculate somebody’s spirit, spunk, and will to live. Give ’em a pain pill.’
For crying out loud, we got the guy on tape on his own television show on ABC saying essentially, at some point it’s not worth the treatment. Now, somebody’s going to have to decide that and he said, ‘It’s going to be us,’ and one of the main things that Rahm Emanuel and Obama want in this is to transfer the authority from Congress to the White House to tell doctors what is and is not treatable and what will and will not be spent on Medicare. They want total control of it. That’s national health care! Look, this notion that ‘none these bills envision a government takeover of health care’? How in the world can he say this when the House bill 1,018 pages is out there and it’s all about a government takeover? But even without that, it’s pure common sense, my friends. If the government is going to write a health care bill that empowers the government to make all these decisions, what is it?
It’s government-run health care, whether it is ‘envisioned’ or not. The dirty little secret is that all kinds of rotten things happened that weren’t ‘envisioned.’ Every time these clowns get together and come up with a major entitlement program. This is just ridiculous. So he’s going to go out there and answer all these major questions, and he’s going to have to lie through his teeth or he’s going to have to say finally, ‘I got a plan,’ and he’s going to have to present a plan that does not have the stuff in it that the House plan has. And maybe that’s what he’s going to do. Maybe he’s going to come out… This ambiguity. He was too ambiguous. He let the House run the whole thing, he didn’t want to step on their toes and that allowed people to fill up the airwaves with lies. No! It allowed people to read the House bill and tell the American people what was in it. It’s right. Nobody is making anything up. And, by the way, this House bill, this House bill was not written this year.
That’s been sitting in Henry Waxman’s drawer. These people have had this dream and vision. It’s 1,008 pages. Bunch of staff members over the years have written this thing. Look at it! I mean, you go to pages and find, ‘This paragraph supersedes this paragraph in this legislation and in that bill over there.’ You’ve gotta go back and look at 15 different bills to figure out what this one means when you read some of the paragraphs. Because this says, ‘Well, this paragraph supersedes paragraph 4(a)(x)(y)(z) in US Code Title 35 Zitch,’ whatever it is. It’s impossible to decipher this in some cases, but what is decipherable is an abomination. This way had not been written this year. It’s been in Henry Waxman’s desk and they’ve just had to pull it out. It’s a thousand eighteen pages. So you’ve had some staffers write this. Special interest lobbyists have no doubt contributed to writing this thing.
That’s why Obama didn’t present his own bill; this is his bill. This is the dream of the far, radical left. So if he’s going to go out and present a new bill tonight, a new plan and he’s gonna go, ‘This is what I’ve got,’ this is going to be fascinating. Because, as Michael Gerson writes today in the Washington Post: ‘Obama’s Crisis: Credibility — The overwhelming majority of Americans, by the definition of denied care, do not face a health care crisis. … So perhaps this is the crisis: rising costs that will eventually overwhelm state and federal budgets and consume more and more of individual paychecks. But this is precisely the area where current Democratic approaches are least credible. Obama abandoned his pledge to reduce the government’s health costs long ago; now he only aims at budget neutrality.’ So he’s got a crisis problem and the crisis is his credibility because he’s been so all over the board on this thing and hasn’t been able to answer specific questions. They relied on his ‘power’ to transcend the rancor of politics and the ‘power’ of his biography and his oratory. And that’s all he’s ever had. He’s got a five-minute career here. It’s all he’s ever had, and it’s gone.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here’s Sandy in Passaic, New Jersey, I’m glad you waited. Welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: Hey, Rush, you’re always talking about how Obama is lying about everything, but he did tell the truth the other day, I think, when he said that the post office has a real hard time doing things. And we’re wondering ourselves, considering those of us who receive a paycheck didn’t get them on Friday, and it was today before they started handing out money orders to us instead of our paychecks.
RUSH: Wait, wait, wait. Wait a minute, now. You work for the post office?
CALLER: Yes, sir.
RUSH: Okay. And they gave you a money order instead of a paycheck?
CALLER: Our paychecks were due to be here on Friday. Those people that have direct deposit got theirs. But those paychecks that come to us in the mail didn’t show up.
RUSH: Now, wait a second. This is a Saturday Night Live script. You work for the post office, and mailed paychecks due Friday didn’t show up so they had to issue money orders?
CALLER: Yes, sir, and those checks still haven’t shown up.
RUSH: Well, does that mean the post office has lost them, or were they never sent?
CALLER: Well, I’m thinking that maybe the money wasn’t there at the time. I don’t know at this point. We’re still looking for some answers but we haven’t gotten them yet.
RUSH: I don’t know. The money is not there for anything they’re doing. We are in debt up to our eyeballs and then some. The money is not there for anything. We’re out of money. Folks, we are going to borrow another trillion dollars. The Senate and the House, we need to raise the debt ceiling to $13 trillion in order to keep functioning and they’re going to do that late this week or early next week. The government’s going to borrow $12 trillion, the interest alone on that is going to be $650 billion a year. That’s money that would otherwise be in the private sector for investment capital and expansion and growth and hiring people. Now, we’re going to borrow — stop and think of this — we’re going to borrow — and I don’t think the president is going to talking about this tonight — we’re going to borrow a trillion dollars just to keep going. And the same day that this is announced, Obama is going to announce a health care program that’s going to cost another trillion dollars.
One of the things I don’t think that they’re aware of in Washington is just how aware and sensitive the people of this country are to this spending problem and have been for a while. So there’s a confluence of events here that does not bode well for Obama. But, remember, what we think, what we care about, what is precious to us doesn’t matter, and the same thing for the Drive-By Media. They have probably already written the stories for after the speech tonight. ‘Whoa, what a comeback, what a wonderful comeback, he’s reclaimed the issue, Obama on his game tonight, this is the Obama we remember.’ Because to the State-Controlled Media, it’s all about Obama and his success, it’s not about the people, not about the country, it’s not about policy. Except to the extent that as much liberalism as possible is desired.
Dan in Destin, Florida, welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Phil, put down the paintbrush and call in! Oh. Mega panhandle dittos, Rush.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: Sir, you stole my thunder in some respects but I tell you, it’s not about health care. I totally agree. It’s yet about another stream of money for the governor, for the Fed to dip into just like they did Social Security. They’re going to rob it blind. I don’t know how we can possibly stop the oligarchy running our government from the federal level, get it back to the states somehow, but it’s all about money.
RUSH: Well, that’s true. But it’s about more than money, and it’s just as important. I know the answer to every question or almost every question can be answered by ‘follow the money.’ And this is clearly about money. But, look, we don’t have any now. They’re printing it. The ChiComs are worried. The ChiComs are even sending us warnings: ‘You gotta start printing money like this. You are going to cause worldwide inflation that nobody’s going to be able to handle.’ See, all of this plays into Obama’s hands. Tax revenues are way down because of all the unemployment. He doesn’t care. This crisis fits into exactly what he wants. This is about power. With that power comes the money. This is about control. This is about fascists as opposed to socialism. Socialism is when the government owns everything. Fascism is where private sector owns things but they have no freedom to run them, people like Obama tell them what to do and they become partners and the people in the private sector, corporations the government wants to control, you know, just bend over forwards and grab the ankles, got no choice. That’s how they stay out of jail, stay in good favor with the administration. It’s horrible and that’s the circumstance here.
Sherry in, what is that, Aledo, Texas.
CALLER: Aledo, Texas.
RUSH: Aledo, Texas. Well, I’m sorry I mispronounced it. It’s the first time I’ve seen it.
CALLER: That’s quite all right. I was calling to suggest that the high insurance costs and health care costs are not entirely due to the insurance companies but also the health providers because they don’t post what they charge for things. I went in for an X-ray yesterday, and the place the doctor sent me to was going to cost me $269.
RUSH: Wait, wait, wait. For an X-ray?
CALLER: For an X-ray.
RUSH: Of what?
CALLER: My toe.
RUSH: So $269 for a toe X-ray. Okay.
CALLER: So I said, ‘Is that the best you can do, because that seems a little high.’
RUSH: Wait a minute. You have insurance?
CALLER: Well, that’s what they asked me and I said, ‘Yes,’ and they’re like, ‘Okay, never mind.’ But regardless, I want to know what it’s going to cost. So she did get it down to $221, and that still seemed awfully high so I left, and I went home and I called around and I found a place that would do it for $80 but there would also be a charge for the radiologist to read it but she couldn’t tell me how much that was, and referred me to billing. Of course I had to leave a message for billing and they never called me back, but I did finally find a place that would do it for $20.
RUSH: Paying for it yourself, no insurance?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: See?
CALLER: See.
RUSH: See? Now, that’s a good deal. So your original price was $289 did you say?
CALLER: It was $269.
RUSH: It was $269 and you got it whittled down to $221, and then $80 but you didn’t know what the radiologist would charge to read it and finally got it down to $20.
CALLER: Twenty dollars.
RUSH: Paying for it yourself.
CALLER: Paying for it myself.
RUSH: Didn’t need your insurance.
CALLER: But, you know, all the places that I asked how much is this going to cost, nobody knew, nobody could tell me. They had to refer me to somebody else, who didn’t call me back.
RUSH: Right, because it doesn’t matter because some third party is going to pay it, not you, and there’s a formula, that’s why they don’t know because it’s not up to them. There’s some formula based on whether the insurance company or whoever it is tells them what it’s worth and what they’re going to reimburse them for. That’s why if you do go into places — you ought to try this, folks, just a standard doctor visit, offer to pay for it yourself, I guarantee you it will cost you less than if you use your insurance. And there’s no deductible, there’s no copay, you just pay it. Try it, see if it works. It worked obviously here for Sherry in Aledo, Texas.
CALLER: I had another question. When insurance is nationalized where do all the people go who work for insurance companies?
RUSH: They are unemployed.
CALLER: Yeah. So that’s really going to be good for the country.
RUSH: Yeah. That’s more crisis for Obama. It’s more uninsured. They’ll have to go on the government option. It’s insidious. Do you think he cares about unemployment now? Anybody running this country in this current economic situation would be devastated, personally devastated over what circumstances the American people are in today, particularly the unemployed and they would be doing something to reverse it. Zip, zero, nada. Stimulus isn’t gonna work anyway. Six percent is what’s been spent. They’re saving the rest of it for 2010, a reelection year. And, by the way, it was in the stack yesterday. I think it’s a Washington Post story, maybe, I’m not sure. It was a story about infrastructure spending down in some big city, and that was the whole point of the stimulus was shovel-ready infrastructure jobs. Anybody with a heart, any president of the United States with a heart would look at this economic mess and would not be doing this, would not have policies anywhere like this, would not be thinking of a health care plan like this and all this borrowing. Folks, this is serious. This is a president working outside the political system of this country to overthrow it.