RUSH: You know, back in the old days when I was a DJ, the program director at KQV Pittsburgh was Bob Harper, a brilliant top 40 programming mind. And I forget what the song was, but there was a big top ten tune that we weren’t playing because Harper considered it morally decrepit. And I said, “Why aren’t we playing it?” He said, “You can never be hurt by a song you don’t play.” Meaning a song that people don’t like that might cause ’em to tune out to a competing station, don’t play it if you’re worried about it. But if you never play it, nobody will ever know for sure that you didn’t play it. So you can’t be hurt by a song you don’t play.
Well, the same philosophy, I can’t be hurt by something I don’t talk about. Except even when I don’t talk about it I’m accused of talking about it. There’s a couple things I’m accused of talking about today. I get blamed for things I haven’t said. I get blamed for things I haven’t done. I don’t get credit for things I do say and do. It’s really cockeyed. Here, grab sound bite eight. I’m not even sure what the context of this is. It was yesterday afternoon in Washington at the AcademyHealth National Health Policy Conference. Representative Michael Burgess, Republican, Texas, congressman, spoke about the coming federal and state health exchanges and other changes in health care as a result of Obamacare.
Now, folks, would you please do me a favor and do not call this man. I don’t want you e-mailing his office. Please don’t fax or call. It’s not worth it. You know, if I ever want you to do something like that, I’ll ask you specifically. But Congressman Burgess said that I said something I don’t recall. Here’s the sound bite.
BURGESS: I don’t want to make this too personal, but despite what you hear on Rush Limbaugh, members of Congress are gonna be covered under the exchanges. Texas is not gonna do an exchange. So, yeah, I’ll be covered under that federal exchange if I choose to get my insurance through the federal government. It will no longer be done through the FEHBP. So this is a matter of no small importance. There are a lot of people who will be looking to this federal exchange to be set up, to their own state exchanges, and it all does have to work on October 1st when it’s switched on the for the first time.
RUSH: Okay. Fine and dandy. Somebody help me out. Somebody do an archive search. I have never said that members of Congress aren’t gonna be covered by the exchange. I haven’t discussed members of Congress’ health care in the context of Obamacare. You know what’s going on here, I am talk radio. So if anybody on talk radio says something, the default gets channeled to me.
“I don’t want to make this too personal.” See, he’s afraid he’s gonna get beat up by you. These guys are all afraid that if they criticize me, you’re gonna rip ’em. Don’t call the guy. Please don’t. Don’t e-mail, none of that. “I don’t want to make this too personal, but despite what you hear on Rush Limbaugh, members of Congress will be covered under the exchanges.” When have I said they weren’t? I don’t even know how members of Congress are gonna be covered. I don’t care. All I know is members of Congress are gonna have health care and that we’re paying for it. That’s all I know. I don’t know where they’re gonna go to the doctor. I don’t know where they’re gonna get it, exchanges or not.
All I know about the exchanges is that if the states don’t set ’em up, that is the bill is written as Obamacare is written right now, the Feds can’t set up an exchange unless they do a quick change in the bill, which would not be hard to do given the political lay of the land. But the original Obamacare law had a problem. If the states don’t set up exchanges, there is no mechanism for the federal government to operate one in the states. Now, I don’t know if that’s been changed. Has it been changed? I didn’t even know that. There might have been a flap right after Obamacare was passed when the people who wrote Obamacare couldn’t say whether Congress was covered or not. I have a faint memory of that, that after Obamacare was passed — it was 2,700 pages. There was a lot that people didn’t know. Remember Pelosi said, “We have to pass this before we can know what’s in it.”
But anyway, this is a classic example. I never said anything like this. “Despite what you hear on Rush Limbaugh, members of Congress are gonna be covered by –” The exchanges are not in the forefront in my mind even as talking points. Anyway. I wanted to get that out of the way.