Health Care Costs Money, So Buy It! (Dr. Rush Limbaugh Slams "The Give It To Me" Mentality Alert)

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.

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.

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: 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 --

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.

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?

RUSH: That's my point. Why should he have bought it? Why don't you hold out for the government to buy the house?

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 --

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: 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: 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.

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: 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.

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.

I hope you read my last sentence because I said I know there are people in difficult circumstances and I do not want to make assumptions about anyone.

I do not think there are any easy answers to the health care problems. I am waiting to see how the MA health care system works out.

If I upset or offended you I do apologize for that was not my intent.

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..

Show me a site that confirms this. I don't believe it.

Yep. We're praying we don't have to go to the hospital either. My husband and I both have some pre-existing conditions that have made so-called "health" insurance rise over time to about $1000 a month even with a big deductible, with no end in sight. So, a year or so ago, we just did it as long as we could and when we finally had to quit, we quit, and now the money we would have paid to an insurance company goes into our own personal medical emergency savings account. We do not touch it for any reason. We have managed to put back quite a bit, but anything complicated would deplete it pretty fast - anyway, the idea we Americans tend to have is to fight nature taking its course and attempting to live until we turn to rocks isn't natural anyway. I'm sixty; Scripture conditionally speaks of threescore years and ten (70) and fourscore (80) if we are really strong. People living to 100 is neat, if they feel fairly decent along the way.

You're both right. Unfortunately, as a provider, I see it all the time -- people who scream when a medicine is $9, that their Tricare isn't picking up that pittance. Then comes in a self-employed schmo, and you have to whittle the medicines down and "sample them up" so that they can keep affording the private school for their children, in lieu of the 50% graduation rate/SAT average 850 public schools (that they already pay for via property taxes X deux). They walk an edge on keeping the HSA up to max, but the semi-healthy, middle-aged, 1 or 2 chronic illness, do-it-alone person, are always pay for the really sick, or really irresponsible. It is the Great Society that we live in.

My husband is self-employed. We looked into it and it would cost over $700 per MONTH to insurance our family of 7. No pre-existing conditions or anything. This is with the insurance through the company he contracts out to. We have to do without. But, we would still not go for universal health insurance.

My husband called me one day to tell me that women pay more to have their nails done than Medicare/Medicaid will reimburse him for office visits....cost of the nails? $15.00

Do we also need to discuss the cost of malpractice insurance?

Then in 2003 the vice president of Clarian took home 2.26 million dollars while most of the doctors salary steadily declined in that corporation.

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?

Because we will all soon be in a 50% tax bracket with socialized medicine. That's the tax dollars that will pay for it.

After a recent proceedure that cost $50,000, I still owed $2,300 that insurance didn't pay. I make monthly payments on that amount.

Why not let your tax dollars work for you?

Because I'm already working through the month of May for the government (with 60% of the US budget going to entitlements). In the Netherlands ("free" health care for all, Socialism all around) income tax rates for everyone are at 60-70%! Why bother working?

Besides socialized medicine does nothing but provide rationing and shortages. And who is going to go into medicine? why study for 15+ years, come out in major debt just to work for the government and make what the guy with a high school diploma makes....why bother with secondary education at all?!

On a more basic level: why would you ever want to give up your freedom? why would ever want for your health care to be controlled by a bunch of bureaucrats? Been to the DMV lately?

"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."

CHIEFQC, socialism is a mental disease and it is obvious that you are severly afflicted and do not know it.

That caller was a real jerk. In fact I doubt his claim that he was a Reagan Republican, or whatever it was he said.

No bonified Republican goes off half-cocked at Prez. Bush because his kids can't get health care benefits at work, or whatever it was he claimed.

Holy Cow. My kid, who graduated from college a few years ago, got health benefits with his first two jobs.

And my daughter's goofy mother-in-law only works part time, and she was offered health care benefits at an enormous discount.

All of which leads me to believe that this caller to Rush was lyin' through his butthole when he claimed to be a dyed-in-the-wool Republican.

More likely he was attempting a sneak attack in the back door, so to speak, which is the only (body orifice) these libs feel comfortable in hangin' around these days.

So if you are dreaming about something that someone else has then get off of your bottom and go get it....put in the time, put in the education, come up with the good idea, work your tail off to build your business, follow your dream. But don't go all class envy on me b/c I actually did those things.

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