Posted on 08/23/2006 4:54:13 PM PDT by goldstategop
RUSH: Larry in Bourbonnais, Illinois, training location for the Chicago Bears. It's nice to have you on the program, sir. Welcome.
CALLER: Hi, Rush, how you doing? Long-time listener, long time Republican, ever since Reagan was elected.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: But I have a confession to make.
RUSH: Yeah?
CALLER: If Hillary or any other Democrat runs for president this next time around and offers some sort of national health care, I'm voting for them.
RUSH: You can't be serious.
CALLER: Serious as a heart attack. You know, I'm tired -- I got the kids here at home -- well, they're grown up now, just young starting out on their own, want to start a family, they did everything by the book, they go into school, went to trade schools, and trying to find a decent job that offers any kind of health benefits is just damn near impossible.
RUSH: No, it's not. Now, come on. Finding a job that offers health benefits is impossible?
CALLER: Well, they offer some sort of health benefits but the portion that you have to pay, well, I got one son, the portion he has to pay would take about probably a third of his monthly income goes just to he health care.
RUSH: All right. Okay. You really stand by the assertion you've been a Republican since Reagan? Because what you're saying here doesn't jibe with what you should have learned and agreed with in those days.
CALLER: Oh, yeah, man, long time, just here in the last few years, I've seen how these kids are struggling now, and competition out there is strong, and you look at it, and you see, well, you know, people that are retired, they got health care, and people that don't want to work, they got Medicaid. They have Medicare for somebody that's retired, but somebody that's just starting out in life, they want to start a family, they got nothing.
RUSH: Well, you know, there is an option. Are all your kids married?
CALLER: Not yet.
RUSH: Not yet. Well, then they don't need it. It is elective. This is one way to look at it. Of the 45 million reputedly uninsured in this country, a large number of them are uninsured by choice. Kids just starting out --
CALLER: (interrupting the professor)
RUSH: Wait. Kids just starting out are just starting out. "Just starting out means something;" retired means something. There are other concerns other than health care when you are young. But let me get to the nut of what you're saying here, because I'm trying to think of a great question to ask you. You would vote for a Democrat if the Democrat promises something close to universal health coverage.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: You ought to know that that doesn't work. You ought to know that everywhere it's been tried around the world -- Canada, Great Britain, it doesn't work, and they still end up with two systems where people who can afford it pay for it themselves, they get the best coverage. Everybody else waits in line for an appendectomy. Now, if the government ought to by your health care, how come the government shouldn't buy your kids a house?
CALLER: Well, he's trying to do that.
RUSH: Who's trying to do that?
CALLER: My son's trying to do that.
RUSH: Trying to get the government to buy him a house?
CALLER: No, he bought a house.
RUSH: That's my point. Why should he have bought it? Why don't you hold out for the government to buy the house?
CALLER: That's not his way, and if he was an illegal --
RUSH: Well, now, wait, why is it his way for the government to buy his health care?
CALLER: If he was an illegal he would just go down to the hospital and get taken care of and let the taxpayer cover it. But he's not that way, either, he's not going to go down there. He's going to pay his bills when he has bills.
RUSH: No, he's not. He's not going to pay his health care bills. For some reason --
CALLER: We're all paying --
RUSH: -- wait a minute. For some reason his neighbors and others in the community ought to pay his health care bills. Who do you think pays for health care for all these people?
CALLER: I do. You do.
RUSH: Exactly!
CALLER: But I'm paying for coverage for the people that are retired. I'm paying for coverage for people that have no job. I'm paying for coverage of people that aren't even citizens of the United States --
RUSH: Okay. All right
CALLER: -- I might as well pay for my own kid.
RUSH: No, no! You're caving in. You're giving up. You're saying sayonara. I can't believe you're saying this. That's not the way to fix this. That's not the way to deal with this, is to make it worse.
CALLER: Well, why should I give up? Our president wants to let 12 million of them stay, 12 million illegals stay in this country, they just go to the hospital and get their health care.
RUSH: Yeah, and it's got people roiled, and there are going to be people paying for that dearly at the next election. You wait.
CALLER: I hope so. I'll talk to my representative here --
RUSH: I guarantee you, you start voting for Democrats you're not going to change any of this. You start voting for Democrats, you're going to be paying more than you are now for everybody to be on health care, and it's going to be so restrictive it's not going to be worth it.
CALLER: At least somebody from my family and my side will benefit from it, you know?
RUSH: I can't believe you. You gotta be putting me on, Larry. You can't possibly be... You're a professional provocateur. You cannot be this shortsighted. You're coming across as two things, someone who has totally given up, you can't beat the system and now you want to game it yourself.
CALLER: Well, I've just about given up, Rush. You know who our senators are here in Illinois?
RUSH: What was the question?
CALLER: Do you know who our senators here in Illinois are? (Durbin | Obama)
RUSH: Yeah, I feel sad for you.
CALLER: Yeah, I've just about given up.
RUSH: Well, if you vote for a Democrat for president, you're waving the white flag.
CALLER: We've got one person here in our state, one representative in our district, Jerry Weller, Republican, is the only one that's got a clue as to what's really going on.
RUSH: No, no. They all know what's going on. What you're up against there are people who are trying to make you give up. They are liberal Democrats. They want you to give up out of frustration. They want you to turn over your life and your kids' lives to them so that you are totally and utterly powerless, so you never have the chance to provide for your own health care. Just like you buy your own car, your own hotel rooms, your own gasoline. Why shouldn't the government buy your gasoline? Where does this kind of stuff stop?
RUSH: Let me see if I can tackle this, because I'm getting lots of e-mails. "That caller was right, there are fewer and fewer companies offering health benefits, and it's getting tougher and tougher for young people to go out there and get health coverage." It's at time like these, ladies and gentlemen, that my soul is tried. Into my 19th year, to still have such ignorance in this audience. I understand it may not be total ignorance. A lot of it is emotion. So what I'm about to say will be considered cold-hearted, mean-spirited, and cruel. First to those of you saying, "He's right, Rush! If the government's buying all these illegal homes and giving them health care, why not us?" You people know better than that.
The idea to fix the problem is to get rid of the government paying health care for illegals and giving them housing and all of that, not for everybody else to get on that gravy train! I am shocked. I am stunned that some of you people want to actually do that. You are giving up. I understand the frustration out there, but get with the program. This stuff never ends. It's an ongoing battle. It's called defeating liberalism and liberals and their way of thinking. They want as many people dependent on them -- i.e., government -- as possible, and I cringe when I hear so many of you people begging to get on the same dole simply because you're bitter that others have it and you don't. I am shocked. That's not what people in this audience are made of, and I will not tolerate it.
The fix for this is to fix the illegal alien problem and to stop all this liberalism and the growth of government. Number two. For those of you who say that fewer and fewer employers are offering health benefits, what is the purpose of a job? To get health coverage, or to get a job to be productive and advance in life so that you can buy whatever you need -- not want, need -- on your own? Since when is it American to transfer your needs to somebody else? Is that the purpose of a company, an organization, a small business sits there for the express purpose of providing your needs? It's bad enough when you think they ought to buy your VCR, but now they ought to buy your needs? I am sick. I am sad. I am disappointed.
What a way to send me off on my golf trip vacation, thinking of myself as an utter failure with some of you people, in 18-plus years. If fewer and fewer companies are offering health benefits, wake up and ask yourself why. Don't conclude it's because they're cruel and mean and greedy and selfish and want you to get sick and suffer. If they hire you, they want you to be productive. They don't want you going to the doctor every damn day. Did you ever stop to think that maybe, if you're taking a look at what's happening at General Motors and Ford, companies have been providing endless benefits for decades, not the only for people who are currently employed but for those who are retired. Do you think this golden goose can't be killed?
The pension programs at General Motors are in trouble because they don't have the money. And so guess what? Good old Uncle Sam is going to take over. So now people are going to be dependent on the government for their pensions! This idea that a company exists to give you health care, where did this come from? I know it's expensive, and I know catastrophic health care is devastating. I'm fully aware of it. I have been there. But the idea that somebody else should pay for that aspect of your life has got to stop, otherwise your kids are going to grow up thinking that somebody else ought to buy their car and that somebody else ought to pay or partially pay for their house, 'cause those things are expensive, too.
Then someday somebody is going to assume that somebody ought to pay for their vacation. Where does this stuff stop? When people are young and just starting out, my thinking is that they need to have a little sense of perspective and proportion, demanding when they're 21, 25, first and foremost that they get health care coverage. I understand people want security. They want to be covered in case something catastrophic happens. The odds of that, to people who are young and youthful are very low compared to people who are aged and older. If it is so important -- pardon me for shouting; I am revved up. If it is so important, how about buying one car, or not buying three plasmas, and going out and buying your own health care plan, finding a group to join, if it's that important?
I understand you're all Americans, and you expect, as Americans, that what is necessary, particularly for health, should be available just because we're Americans. But it costs. It has, as does everything, a price. We have, as human beings, priorities. Now, if you are really at the top of your list, concerned about health care, and you're working for someplace that doesn't provide it, then I would think the responsible thing to do would be to go out and buy it for yourself and do without something else. But I realize those two words infuriate many of you, "do without." It is a concept that many young people don't understand anymore.
"Do without? Easy for you to say! You've got everything."
Yeah, well, when I was 21, 22, we all did without, and a lot of people are still doing without, but they still strive. But this notion that because the illegals get health care free -- and, by the way, if you -- if you go to places where this is happening, 11 emergency rooms in southern California have closed and shut down because they weren't being paid. They had by law to cover, but they couldn't keep operating. So we're short 11 emergency rooms, and this is from the Los Angeles Times about a year ago. We're short 11 emergency rooms. What you look and see as the grass being greener is not, almost in all cases, is not what it appears to be. The grass is seldom greener because everything is relative. I understand as well as anybody the frustration over illegal aliens and the fact that they get -- well, I don't know about housing.
I don't know where that comes from, but the medical care and so forth and so on, and I understand for young people starting out that you can't afford the house that you grew up in. "It's so unfair. It just isn't right." This is what I mean, folks, when I have said, and when I've been saying over the course of many recent months here, that we have a society that's so affluent -- and we really, really do -- that the expectations that people have are through the roof, and that's fabulous, and that's great. But you have to understand at the same time that the expectations are just that. If you expect X, it's also expected of you that you are going to get it, and when I hear you expecting it to be given or provided you, I will admit to you, I feel like an utter failure, if you have been in this audience longer than two years and saying these things.
As to health care: For years, responsible people like me have been proposing a fix to this. Why is it that a hospital bed should cost more than somebody can afford for it? Hotels can't do that. Hotels can't charge themselves -- can't charge a thousand dollars a day, Motel 6, Holiday Inn, take your pick, they can't charge a thousand dollars a day and then have the government come in and pick up a room insurance program for people that want to go on vacation or stay in a hotel. They have to price it according to the ability of the chosen customer base to pay for it. Medicine doesn't do that. Does anybody wonder why? Anybody wonder why hospitals get away with a thousand, $1500 a night for a hospital bed? It's because somebody's paying for it. Government, insurance companies, or somebody is. You realize what's happening with all this? Do you really think that a Band-Aid costs ten bucks in a hospital? The reason it does is because somebody's willing to pay it without asking. It's absurd. So how do you fix this? Well, you bring competition back into the marketplace, make going to the doctor -- we're not talking about catastrophic. That's a different thing here. But you make going to the doctor for checkups competitive, so that patients can go out and shop for it or price it just like everything else.
But no, we've got HMOs, got these other organizations, and you're given a field of doctors to go through, and go to, and then that's the price you pay. Even at that, we have the world's best health care system. There's no doubt about it. But the idea -- and this is what stuns me the most, wounds me to the heart the greatest -- the idea that because you don't have health care insurance means you don't have medical coverage is absurd. You can go to the doctor and you can pay him. (Gasping.) What a concept. But for some reason the thought of paying medical care, just unacceptable. No, the company ought to pay for that. And there ought not be any copay, and I ought not have to pay a portion of it. I don't know where this comes from, but you have been trapped and you have been lured and you have been screwed into believing the liberal concept of life, that somebody else has to pay for it or else you can't have it. Now, wake up, folks.
Damn newbie.
The health care system has a lot of problems when it comes to acute, crisis situations. Let's say your kid gets leukemia. That can eat up a million dollars worth of medical care. What happens when the victim doesn't have insurance? Do we put them into perpetual bankruptcy? Do we demand people carry insurance? Do we just tell them, "hey, that's the risk you took by having kids." Somebody pays in the end.
I think the caller was full of it. Young adults can get low rates from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois. It may not be the case in socialistic states like New York, but in Illinois is not a problem. A 25 year old can get halfway decent coverage for under $100 a month..
Physicians and hospitals have a monopoly. The issue is not whether this is right or wrong, but to simply state the fact. This results in a limited number of providers who exclude all others (or as many as they can) such that fees and charges are only controlled by the willingness and ability of citizens to pay.
After a fashion this worked until 1965. Then the government began Medicaid and Medicare. Payment was now divorced from services such that those fortunate to receive these services asked for more, and more and more health care. That is demand exploded.
At the same time indemnity insurance was legislated to provide more and more services by the state legislatures such that more and more costs were added with more and more premiums due. Then, the HMOs were brought in. In this instance the idea was early screening, yearly physicals and thus catching diseases and disorders early.
Of course this HMO preventative plan didn't work either so recently the "plan" is to increase co-pays, deductibles and so forth.
Besides the monopoly problem, then, we have the second problem--payment is divorced from services. Physicians especially deny this but it is true. Patients all believe they must receive the very best regardless of cost and physicians and hospitals generally will aid them in this quest or go out of business.
The upshot of these shearing forces--monopolies and third party payment--is exploding demand. Don't feel too bad the single payer plan in Canada results in 36 month waits for hip replacements and 19 month waits for major depression psychiatric consultation! Waiting lists are a form of rationing and are now quite popular in places where a private practise alternative is not available.
The truth is, few governments thought about what they were doing. Karl Marx started all of this in the mid 19th century, Germany became the first to do national health care and it has been wildly popular wherever it is tried--that is, as long as you do not become sick.
If you are on Medicare you may find it hard to find a doctor or have one who will see you on a regular basis. Most physicians, and especially Minnesota psychiatrists, cannot run an outpatient practice based on Medicare and Medicaid. The fees have been discounted to the point something else has to happen.
I have some ideas for solutions since I have been both a provider and a manager for a large health plan. But I will leave that for another night when I have time to develop the argument. In the meantime, for those who can afford it private care is by far and away the best. For others, they will face actual or quasi rationing since the demand outstrips the government's ability or willingness to pay.
While I listen to Rush all the time, sometimes he sounds like the jerks in Washington. Although I understand what he's talking about it seem that he has lost contact with the joe six pack group. When you are in a position like he is with a great job, plenty of money, etc. it's hard for the average person to agree with people in like positions and hear them tell those who are not equal how then should give up things while all the while they suround themselves with things others can only dream about.
Lord, aint' that the truth. When my little son was born, almost 31 years ago, the hospital required some unholy sum of $400. We didn't have it. I was petrified that if we couldn't "pay off the baby" that they wouldn't let me take him home, like anyone wants something has has to eat every four hours....lol. We got all that worked out and my beautiful (11 lb.) baby left the hospital when I did. It never dawned on me to ask my parents for the money, much less some government program. After all, we were "just starting out" but still hell bent on making our own way. That's an attitude that seems to be missing these days. There was a time people didn't expect hand outs, now everybody does.
I had a similar situation. My friends are self employed so they do pay a fair amount for health insurance so of course she was complaining....but then both of her sons drove BMW's to school....I had little sympathy
Whatever....
I'm self-employed and paying through the nose for lousy health insurance with a $5,000 deductible. Just yesterday, my wife needed a glaucoma test that cost $465, and they wouldn't pay a penny of it, but they sure want their big payment on the first of every month (BTW, the test was "inconclusive," so they want to give her even more expensive tests.)
Rush missed the boat on this one. He's so rich, I don't think he remembers what it's like to really struggle with bills that are skyrocketing. I am a lifelong, rock-ribbed conservative and I certainly don't want UK or Canadian-style health care, but there's got to be a better way than what we've got, particularly for the self-employed. We are not "just starting out," we're middle-aged, and my wife has had some health problems that have nearly bankrupted us. We have no cable TV, no cell phones, no NFL season tickets and haven't gone away on a vacation in over 10 years.
What nobody ever mentions is that the government royally screws the self-employed. If you work for a big company, you get free insurance that is a cost of your employment, but you don't have to declare the value as income. If you're self-employed, you have to first pay big taxes on your income, then take those meager after-tax dollars and use them to buy lousy, overpriced insurance, and you can't even deduct the full cost of it from your taxes. So when I hear some politician crying about the plight of people who are struggling to pay for health care, I always ask, "If you care that much, then why do you keep writing tax laws that make it impossible for us to afford insurance?"
Medical bills are sometimes a FACTOR in people filing for bankruptcy. Most of the time it's a bunch of idiots who never learned how to use credit cards and live a lavish lifestyle on a pauper's salary.
You know i have great health benefits. I am self employed, subcontracted us to Administaff, have 5 employees and am willing to pay the $1000 a month premium per person so and i'm not whining I hope you all hear me up front on that.
I usually agree with rush but there have been two things in my life that say the causes for health care situation going up MUST be address. (i dont want universsl care).
First experience, you ever go to a great hospital like Johns Hopkings, or Texas Medical Center. Only people there are medicaide recipents. Think i'm making it up. Go look. You would be shocked. A regular non-medicaide person has a real tough time getting in.
Second. I got a bill for my hystercomy, It was $19,200 so i call our carrier to enquire why, They said oh you got the raw bill our negotiated rate is only $2200. So if i didn't have insurance the bill is $19,000. That's Bull flat out.
Lastly, all our minor emergency rooms are closed here, because they couldn't keep the doors open because the get stiffed.
I heard the guy and i think he was just worn out. The system sucks, illegal immigrants situation sucks. And the productive members of the country are taking in shorts. Its not liberal to say that because its the Republicans that are paying.
I have patients that gripe when my front office asks them for their 5 dollar co pay. We found out if we do not get the 5 dollars up front many will not pay. Sad but True.
I assume it was a more extensive glaucoma test than the air-puff or the torsion bar thing they often do routinely at the optometrist's office?
You guys are missing the point. We are already paying for it for millions of others. Why not let your tax dollars work for you?
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