RUSH: The Obama healthcare show last night on ABC came in last place. The ratings are in, at least the overnights are. The overnights give an indication what the national rating is going to be. The rating was sickly. The Town Hall special struggled for viewers. It got 4.7 million viewers, 1.1 million in the 
18 to 49 demo, and it had the fewest viewers in the 10:00 hour, which is when it was on. Greetings, folks. Great to have you with us in the fastest week in media. Already Thursday. They needed me on the show if they wanted ratings. No, I didn’t watch it. There’s no way I was going to watch. In fact, folks, let me tell you something. I have often argued that the way we have to deal with this is just to stop accepting these people’s premises. For crying out loud, look at what’s going on just this week that has to be done tomorrow. It has to be. It has to be. The stupid cap-and-tax plan, which is an Obamanation. It’s a massive tax increase that’s going to lower everybody’s standard of living. It’s going to punish everybody who has achieved. It’s going to limit mobility. It is an absolute disaster.
The answer is ‘no,’ tomorrow or next week or next year or next 10 years, no to the cap-and-trade program. We don’t need to debate it around the edges. We might have to explain it to people. Now we’ve got the healthcare push. Rahm Emanuel up on the Hill, we’ve got to get it done today and we have to get it done tomorrow. In fact, cap and trade, Algore was going to go to DC today to lobby members. Nope. It’s in such crisis Algore is staying in Nashville and working the phones. So we’ve got to get that done today. Have to get it done today. Healthcare, have to get it done today, have to get it done today. Folks, let me tell you something, the answer to all this is ‘no.’ He wants to fix things with which there are no major problems. And he does it, and his fixes are not fixes. His fixes are destructive. Barack Obama wants to destroy the private sector of this country.
I read some of the transcripts of this show last night. I’ve seen some of the reports of it. I didn’t need to watch this thing to know what it was going to be. It was an infomercial. It was a Barack Obama filibuster. I got the story here that somebody clocked the camera time and the speech time everybody got. Was it Newsbusters? Yeah. Obama got 60 percent of the airtime last night. A couple questions that were supposed to be asked were not asked. Diane Sawyer and Charlie Gibson, Obama got 60 percent of the air time. It was a filibuster last night. And here’s Obama talking about he’s going to allow people to keep their doctor. Who the hell is he to allow us to do anything? We’ve got to stop thinking about this the way we do. Who is he to say he is going to allow us to keep our doctor? Sorry, folks. That’s not his job. The President of the United States does not personally permit or allow anyone to do anything except people who work for him. The bottom line is he works for us. We are the ones that have the power to say, no, we’re not going to allow you to destroy our public sector; we’re not going to permit you to destroy the greatest economy in the history of the world. We’re not going to permit you to do it.
The polls on issue by issue by issue all illustrate that a majority of Americans don’t support what he’s doing, but that he still remains popular. Now, if you paid attention to the news today, after cap and trade, gotta get that done tomorrow, gotta get it done tomorrow, gotta get it done, cap and trade. You know why they want to get it done? To get it out of the way before anybody finds what it is so they can move on to healthcare. Get that done, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, before anybody can find out what’s in it. Yeah. You let a number of Americans find out that unions are exempt from any tax increase on their healthcare benefits, and there’s a number of other things in this bill that if people found out about they would oppose it even more than they already do. Obama doesn’t want you to know what’s in this bill.
In fact, Senator Kennedy’s version of the healthcare bill mandates that members of Congress are exempt from whatever healthcare bill Obama and Kennedy come up with. It’s right in his bill. John Fund found it. That’s why it has to be done tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, before anybody finds out what’s in it. From the New York Times today: ‘President Obama is expected to meet with Congressional leaders of both parties on Thursday to begin laying the political groundwork for sweeping immigration legislation, even though its passage this year is considered very unlikely.’ Look what’s happening here, immigration reform. We know what that is. That’s amnesty. That’s more Democrat voters. Got to have cap and trade.
Some idiot on his blog actually blamed global warming for Tiger Woods losing the US Open because global warming brought about all that rain on the opening day when Tiger was in the early tee times and it screwed up his whole tournament. He doesn’t mention the fact that June has been the coldest on record in many, many years. I mean, these people are just nuts. They’re absurd. They are dangerous, and we just need to say no. We’re all getting caught up here in what is the definition of normal? You know what normal is? Climate change is normal. The climate is always changing. But for some reason we now have it in our midst that the climate today is perfect, that this is what should always be, that this is always what has always been, and somehow if we don’t keep this version of normal we’re all going to die. Well, normal is climate does change. It’s not even arguable. It’s all over history, ice ages, massive deserts all over the planet. Climate change is normal. There’s nothing anybody can do about it. Except we adapt, which is what we’ve always done.
Healthcare, there’s nothing wrong with it. This guy says I’m going to allow you to keep your own doctor. In the first place, that is a lie. You’re not going to be able to keep your own doctor because Obama’s going to cut their fees. I’m going to go through the details of this anyway. There are some points that have to be made about. For the first time in my life I’m hearing somebody say we are going to cut costs in healthcare. But the only way he can do that is to reduce the number of people accessing the system. The only way he can do that is by telling doctors they can’t charge as much or insurance companies they can’t charge as much. Now, I want to ask you, who is going to go into the medical profession and be a doctor if Barack Obama has to sit there and approve what they can make, if Barack Obama gets to decide what they get paid per treatment, per patient, whatever they do. He doesn’t have the right to allow me anything. He doesn’t have the permission. Who in hell does he think he is to stand up there and say: ‘Well, I’ll allow you to keep your own doctor.’ Screw you! Allow me to keep my own doctor? You don’t even know my doctor. My doctor doesn’t even like you. None of my doctors do. Allow me to keep my own doctor.
Global warming. Cap and trade. Immigration reform. The answer to all this is no. Stop! Meanwhile, all this is going on and the private sector continues to be beaten up. ‘The economy tumbled at a 5.5 percent pace in the first quarter, although it appears to be doing better now even though heavy layoffs –‘ It is not doing better now. It is plunging. It’s getting worse. As Warren Buffet said yesterday: It is in a shambles. ‘A separate government report found new jobs claims jumped unexpectedly last week.’ Unexpectedly. What’s unexpected about it? Obama himself even predicted 10 percent unemployment. So why the hell is state-run AP saying it’s unexpected? Don’t they trust the Messiah when he tells them that unemployment is going to hit 10 percent? ‘Continuing claims for unemployment benefits rose more than expected.’ Who are these people? All this is predictable. We’ve got a man single-handedly trying to whack the US private sector.
Tony Soprano has taken over the US government and the private sector is an opposing family. He’s going to wipe it out. It will be brought back to life on an HBO series soon. So unemployment’s going up. The economy’s slowing down. What are we doing? We’re coming up with recipes to make it even worse. We’re coming up with recipes to cause the economy to shrink faster, joblessness to increase faster. We are going in debt the likes of which none of us have ever seen. There is no stop to this. The Republicans have done their own scoring on this stupid healthcare plan, $3.5 trillion is what they say. The CBO says $1.6. The fact is nobody knows. It is going to be so much; it is going to be so expensive; it’s going to be so inefficient. It isn’t going to work and it’s going to bankrupt the country, which you figure people know this and they’re still willing to do it. Hell, the answer to all this is just ‘no.’ We don’t have crisis after crisis after crisis. We don’t have a country that was headed down the tubes. We may have one now given who’s running it, and that’s why we have to say no. Saving the United States of America means Obama has to be stopped. Rahm Emanuel has to be stopped. David Axelrod has to be stopped. Mayor Daley in Chicago has to be stopped because that’s who’s running the show. They have to be stopped. Arguing about this on the margins is a little too esoteric.
Anyway, I gotta take a brief timeout here. We’ll be back. I’ve got sound bites from the show. I pay people to watch this garbage that I don’t want to waste time watching, and they tell me what happened. I got the sound bites from some of this stuff. We’re going to play it. We’re going to go through all of this. But the answer, I’m going to say throughout the whole program: no. We don’t need any of this. We don’t need it. We already have evidence that Obama’s recipes fail. How is that stimulus plan working getting you your new job? How’s Wall Street doing? Big time raises, big time bonuses. You get zilch. You lose your job. Gas prices are going up. You know the reason why he took over GM and Chrysler? It’s in his book. It’s in one of his two books. The reason he took over GM and Chrysler is very simple. The unions don’t like the idea of retooling to manufacture cars nobody wants, because nobody buys them, therefore there’s no need to build them and therefore there are layoffs.
Obama wants people driving around little putt-putt hybrids. The only way he can do it is to take over the auto companies and give the unions insurance that they’re not going to lose any jobs, income or benefits when the companies start making cars nobody wants. And voila, it’s in his book and we’ve got it. They own General Motors and they own the majority of Chrysler. And they’re covered. And now they’re not going to be taxed on their healthcare benefits. The answer’s no. The answer’s no. And we ought to be damn proud to say we’re the ‘party of no’ or the ‘country of no’ or what have you. Meanwhile Iranians are nuking up and North Koreans are nuking up and Obama doesn’t give a rat’s rear end about it. We have real problems that face us and they’re not the ones he’s dealing with. He’s inventing and creating new problems with his so-called solutions. The answer is no.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: By the way, folks, the Immigration bill. Let me read to you state-run New York Times. Immigration reform. ‘Obama Set for First Step on Immigration Reform.’ Now later down the story: ‘White House officials do not rule out the possibility of an immigration overhaul before midterm Congressional campaigns are in full swing next year. Some [White House] officials, however, say passage,’ of Obama’s immigration reform, which means amnesty, ‘will more likely come in 2011, when Mr. Obama hopes to tap his broad support among Hispanic voters as he begins his run for re-election.’ So get the whole thing in motion now. Play with it all the way through 2011 and then push it big time as an issue during the re-election campaign.
Now, remember, this is going to happen. That strategy is going to happen, and the Republican Party has an opportunity to learn from a giant boondoggle they made in 2008 — and that is, thinking they can take the Hispanic vote away from Obama by also being for amnesty. We tried it in 2008 and it didn’t work. It didn’t work big time. So we know what’s coming. We know what he’s going to do. The answer is no. I’ve been thinking very carefully about this healthcare issue. Very carefully. And as you people know, when I think, I am dangerous. I can see Obama actually cutting healthcare costs only if he takes some millions of people off of healthcare. I don’t know how you cut healthcare costs by covering more people. The math doesn’t work.
We’re talking about these 47 million uninsured, which is a bogus number anyway, but let’s deal with it since that’s what they’re using. Cutting costs by putting 40 million people on healthcare defies common sense. It also defies the Congressional Budget Office. I can further see Obama promising better healthcare by taking 40 million people off of it. He’s not saying this. If he would say this, it would make sense. With less patients, doctors would have more time. You know, we want smaller classrooms, right, for better education. Well, fewer cases, doctors would have more time and give better care, right? The so-called healthcare debate is no longer about healthcare reform. The issue is real simple.
Who do you trust more — you and your doctor and your common sense, or Barack Obama and the Democrats in Congress? That’s what this is about. Who do you trust more? Here’s what Obama actually said at his press conference yesterday while I was on the way back from Hawaii. He said: ‘Like energy, this is legislation that must and will be paid for. It will not add to our deficits over the next decade. We will find the money through savings and efficiencies within the healthcare system, some of which we’ve already announced.’ Now let’s try this test of logic. What are we told about education? We’re told that to improve education we have to pay teachers more. In other words, we have to spend more money to improve education.
Right? We know that that doesn’t result in improved education, but this is what we are told. So I don’t buy it. But let’s say it’s true. Let’s just take them and their premise for what it is. To improve education, you have to pay teachers more. To improve education, we have to spend more. But to improve healthcare, we’re going to spend less? We’re going to pay healthcare providers less? Who do you trust more: Yourself/your doctor or Obama and the Democrats in Congress? Let me ask you this: ‘What will encourage more people to become doctors? Less pay? More government control? Or higher pay?’ The State-Run Media and Robert B. Reichhhh are clinging to that rigged New York Times poll last week to show overwhelming support for reform. That poll was as rigged a poll as we have ever seen.
It was stacked, not with Democrats versus Republicans, independents. It was stacked with Obama supporters. It was a rigged poll. They were polling the wrong people. What they should have done, they should have gone out and polled the ChiComs: ‘Do you want to lend one trillion or two trillion to Obama to pay for healthcare reform?’ That should’ve been the question. The idea that he’s going to somehow improve coverage and cut costs doesn’t work when you’re talking about 47 million uninsured. And I have a story here in the LA Times. Headline: ‘Obama Discusses Deathbed Measures.’ We talked about this yesterday. When Obama and his buds are in control, your healthcare — and there will be no private healthcare unless you can afford it personally.
He promises that the government-run plan will play with the same rules, but it’s not possible because they don’t have to make a profit and the private sector does. We told you yesterday that your healthcare will be determined by how much the government values your worth. ‘In a nationally televised event at the White House Obama said families need better information so they don’t unthinkingly approve additional tests or additional drugs that the evidence shows is not necessarily going to make a difference. He said, ‘Maybe you’re better off not having the surgery. Just take the painkiller.” Maybe you’re better off not having the surgery, just take the painkiller. There it is! He said it last night. He wants to decide. He wants his government to decide whether or not it’s worth treating you or whether to give you a painkiller and zone you out for the rest of your life.