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.
It was a very complicated, two-hour test at a glaucoma specialist clinic, designed to tell if some anomaly in one eye is a natural condition or early glaucoma that could possibly be prevented. But of course, after two hours and nearly $500, they still couldn't tell. More tests!!
If the Good old USA can for no reason known to me Give Mega millions to Egypt-gt nothing-oh why even continue with the give aways. We are getting nothing in return. I think the country owe's it to at a minimum free health for vet's for life
I think that even Rush might think, "ya know, that's a lot of money for insurance." Thankfully, I was able to find a job that did offer health insurance, and I'm back to paying less than $200 a month. But for a while there, it was a bit sticky... I was getting close to having to make a choice between making my mortgage payment (which was only $540 a month) or having health insurance. I was afraid that I'd have to sell my house, and get a small apartment so that I'd be able to continue to have health insurance, payed for with the money from my home sale - Oh, and my car? At the time, it was an 8 year old Toyota Corolla. And my TV? I had bought it when I bought my house, 13 years before... Not exactly the sort of spend-thrift that Rush was talking about today.
Mark
Geez. Where I work single guys are paying about $70 week.
There are good and bad parts to medical sharing plans and may well be an alternative for some who cannot qualify for an individual plans and do not fall into a low income bracket to qualify for a state sponsored Medicaid program such as "Medi-cal" or "Healthy Families" (children only program) in California. They are not, however, an association sponsored health "insurance" program which is regulated my the insurance commission of any state.
You expect WHO to pay?
If I have insurance, I expect the insurance company to pay what they agreed to pay.
When I needed my emergency back surgery, I had nearly $14,000 in liquid savings. That wouldn't have even come close to covering the first day.
And there's a bit of a difference between your transmission going out, and having a serious medical emergency. If your transmission goes out, you've got options. For instance, you can bum a ride, or rent a car. If the transmission is going to be too expensive to fix right away, you can always buy an old beater for a few hundred dollars.
If you have a medical emergency, and say you can't move your legs, well there simply aren't too many options for you. Have you seen the cost of neurosurgeons lately?
Mark
What do you think neurosurgeons should cost?
How do you think they should be paid?
Of course, for my family here in CT the premium is $800/month. We don't pay that but it's about half.
I have a friend who is one of those caught in the middle. Not enough income to afford insurance, and too much income to get Medicaid. They just go to a family doctor who understands their situation, and charges them less. If they need meds, he gives them samples or writes up generic brands. When they have to go to the hospital, they negotiate with the hospital for less and pay it off monthly. A catastropic illness or accident would put them in debt for life, but the hospital has to accept what they can pay, as long as they pay something every month.
Rush thinks everyone is a spendthrift except him as he flies out on a private jet to go golfing for the weekend.
I'm more than happy to pay that $5000 deductible. When you add up all the extra money you pay for full health coverage... you actually save money if you don't have anything really bad happen to you. I like it so much better than spending $500 a month.
Yes, it is a wonderful place. Danny Thomas left a wonderful legacy there. They do put the parents up. They have houses set aside for them. It is a worthy place to support and that is where my charity dollars go, of course. My son died there and they were absolutely wonderful to me. His doctor corresponded with us for years afterward. He was a nice Jewish boy. We sort of adopted him.
By all means, I think our vets should get the free health care. They earned it the hard way.
Exactly.
I like Rush, but I can only take him in small doses for the reasons you metioned.
I listen to a lot of talk radio and have for about ten years now. I started listening on AM1500KSTP in St Paul, which has a pretty good lineup of local personalities. Then, I forget why, but they lost Rush's show. He moved to a new FM talk station, KTLK. They advertise themselves as catering to "affluent" talk radio fans. They actually use the word "affluent" when airing the text of their mission statement. (I'm not affluent, I don't want to be affluent, and even if I were affluent, I would resent being labeled as such.)
I decided to subscribe to XM satellite radio and see what they offered. There is a large variety of conservative talk radio available (no Rush though, and some others like Michael Savage are not there either) but the vast majority of hosts have the same problem as Rush.
They try to come off as regular guys and gals and then in the next breath they talk about the last time they had dinner with Senator So-and-So, or how they sat next to Mr Fortune500-CEO and his family yesterday in church, or how they're jetting off overseas for the third time this year.
Aren't there any middle class people hosting radio shows? I want to hear from a true peer once in a while. Even the hosts on AM1500 were always dropping names, saying how they know this billionaire, or how that big-money CEO is married to their half-sister. Then they go on to list the problems with their large home and pool on Lake Minnetonka (a high demographic area west of the Twin Cities.)
I'm not a class warfare/envy type of guy, and I love these conservative radio hosts most of the time because our politics are very compatible. It's just that sometimes it comes across glaringly how different their lifestyles really are from mine and those of all of the people that I care about and associate with.
If you're truly a physician, you should consult somebody in this regard....our personal internist, surprisingly, waits for the insurance company's "adjustment", and then sends us only one bill.
They are not, however, an association sponsored health "insurance" program which is regulated my the insurance commission of any state.
Medishare has a catastrophic policy attached to each plan.
I agree with Rush that the government should not pay, but Rush doesn't even seem to want employers to include it.
Aren't there any middle class people hosting radio shows?
I agree with Rush on this one. The caller was an idiot (well, maybe just uninformed) if he thinks that getting "free" healthcare will solve any problems at all.
It's called stepping over dollars to pick up pennies; it will cost far more (in dollars and otherwise) to have "free" healthcare than to just pay for it directly.
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