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Feb. 28, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:20
February 28, 2006, Tuesday, Hour #2
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And good afternoon, once again, ladies and gentlemen, uh music lovers, thrill seekers, uh, all across the fruited play and El Rushbow here, the all-knowing, all caring, all sensing, all feeling, all concerned, Maha Rushi.
Behind the golden EIB microphone at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies, there are no graduates, there are no degrees, the learning never stops.
If you would like to appear on the program, 800-282-2882 email address rush at EIB net.com.
New York Times headline today.
Americans are cautiously open to gas tax increase poll shows.
All right, that's the headline.
Here's the story.
Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to you here.
Americans cautiously open to gas tax rise.
First line of the story: Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to a higher federal gas tax, but a significant number would go along with an increase in the gas tax if it reduced global warming or made the United States less dependent on foreign oil.
This according to the latest New York Times CBS news poll.
All right, now I remember Hurricane Katrina.
I remember the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
And you note when gas prices go up, but government doesn't get the money, it's an all-out panic.
They start talking windfall profits taxes in Washington.
And the media conducts another drive-by shooting.
They just drive by a crowded area with the top down, they start spraying bullets to get everybody all worked up, and the Democrats have to come in after that and clean up the mess.
We all have to come and clean up the mess, but that's what they do.
But when the gas price was rising, we had this governor wherever he was, Minnesota was I forget where it was, uh uh North Dakota, it was South Dakota, uh, Utah, whatever.
I don't care where some governor wanted to sue the oil companies and wouldn't fall profits tax.
And uh Dad, you people, you people calling me here left and right, complaining about why the gas prices are going up.
What well, of course, we had a supply interruption because of the hurricane.
We had some oil rigs that were knocked offline.
Uh prices did get gougy in certain places, like six bucks a gallon in Atlanta, but they didn't survive, it didn't last.
The attention on all this brought the prices down because you people figured that your anger forced the oil companies to lower prices uh in response to your public outrage.
The market doesn't do with it, you thought.
Now, that same people, that same group of the same the American population, gets a poll question from CBS.
Would you pay higher gasoline taxes if it meant uh lower in other words?
Would you would you go along with a higher gas price?
Would you go along with increased gasoline prices if it means a reduction in global warming and less dependence on foreign oil?
Now the fact that the same people, group of people, on the one hand, will be outraged when gasoline prices go up, but sit around and docily accept the notion that taxes go up.
You know, the the uh the lift, the well, high taxes would would lower consumption.
The theory of high taxes, a higher price is that lower consumption would produce fewer emissions, and uh that we would use less oil, and that would mean less dependence on foreign oil, and then we could build schools and uh and romper room places we could we could build sandboxes and uh uh uh continue all the work for the poor and the needy that we are not doing because we're a horrible country.
But I just this is this is more smoke and mirrors.
The ide here here, let me give you the numbers that the poll came up with.
It was a nationwide telephone poll.
It was conducted Wednesday through Sunday, suggested that a gasoline tax increase that brought measurable results would be acceptable to a majority of Americans.
Neither Bush nor the Democratic Party leaders make that distinction, both are opposed to increasing the gas tax as a means of discouraging consumption.
Although President Bush has recently called for the development of alternative energy to reduce dependence on foreign oil.
Eighty-five percent of the 1,018 adults polled opposed an increase in the federal gasoline tax, suggesting that politicians have good reason to steer away from so unpopular a measure, but 55% said they would support an increase in the tax, which is now at 18.4 cents a gallon since 1993, if it did in fact reduce dependence on foreign oil.
Fifty-nine percent were in favor if the result was less gasoline consumption and less global warming.
The margin of sampling error plus or minus three percentage points.
Now this is a trick because when government gets the money, when the price of anything goes up because of taxes and government gets the money, your complaints fall on deaf ears.
Nobody cares, nobody's gonna listen to you, and a governor of wherever is not going to sue anybody if the government gets the money.
But when big oil gets the money, why there is a conspiracy, and there is a crime, and there are obviously are windfall profits, and we've got to do something to stop them.
This is a blatant attempt to create the impression that the American people are okay with increasing taxes if there is some do gooder concern attached.
And I, for one, don't believe the results of this poll any more than I believe the results of CBS's poll on Bush's popularity.
I don't trust anything CBS does when it uh CBS News does when it comes to a poll, and you know what I think about the New York Times.
Now, speaking of um I've got a couple more port stories here, but I'm I'm gonna save them for later on because I did mention this earlier and I want to, and we'll get back to the ports when we get to your phone calls.
There's a piece by Brendan Minater today in the Wall Street Journal's opinion journal.com section you can access it there if you don't subscribe to the Wall Street Journal.
Uh and it's about the war on Walmart, and Mr. Mineter's point is that the war on Walmart is really about expanding government.
With the war on Walmart now heating up in nearly three dozen state legislatures, I put a call into somebody who was in on the ground floor in pushing to force Walmart to spend more on health care for its employees.
What Maryland's delegate James Hubbard, a Democrat from Prince George's County, had to say was revealing of both why he backed his state's Walmart bill and what this fight is really about.
Expanding Medicaid and other taxpayer funded health care entitlements.
Let's first understand that the drive to enact anti-Walmart legislation has very little to do with the retail giant except in two respects, dipping into its very deep pockets and using the controversy surrounding the company to mask the larger agenda of expanding already bankrupt entitlement programs.
Now, of course, in this war, legislators of uh have already made ally in the AFL CIO, which has its own reasons for going after Walmart.
With that, let's turn to Mr. Hubbard.
He began our conversation by pointing out that the Walmart bill, which forces companies with more than 10,000 employees to spend at least 8% of their payroll on health care or pay the state the difference, was always intended to be just the first step.
Four years ago, he made his intentions clear by introducing legislation to increase cigarette taxes and to use the tax code to compel employers to provide health insurance.
Under his legislation, the revenue from these taxes would be dumped into a new state fund that would then be used to expand Medicaid eligibility to families with incomes up to 300% of the poverty line.
But even in a legislature with large Democratic majorities, his bill stalled.
So Mr. Hubbard and others settled on a new approach, pushing through smaller, bite-sized pieces.
The first piece was the Walmart bill.
It passed last year, it was enacted last month when the legislature overrode the governor's veto.
Two weeks ago, Mr. Hubbard was added again, this time introducing a new bill to mandate that companies with at least one thousand employees spend four and a half percent of their payroll on health care or pay the state the difference.
Once this piece is in place, Mr. Hubbard told me the next step will be to create a similar mandate, maybe two percent to three percent for companies with fewer than one thousand employees.
Each year, Mr. Hubbard hopes to expand the mandate to include even smaller companies with the ultimate goal of health coverage for all Marylanders.
He noted uh how effective splitting the difference can be in moving legislation toward a larger goal.
If you give up 80% of what you want to get 20%, after five years, you'll have nothing left to give up.
It is within this context that we should view the National Governor's Association meeting in Washington this week.
Like all interest groups, the state's chief executives are determined not to leave town empty-handed.
Every year, a top agenda item for them is getting more federal dollars to cover the ever expanding cost of Medicaid.
And who could blame them?
After all, the federal government created Medicaid as a tiny program in the 60s.
Today, it eats up, on average, about a quarter of each state's budget and grows every year at a rate that outstrips inflation and threatens to gobble up dollars needed for education and other priorities.
Yep, Mr. Hubbard isn't the only state lawmaker who's figured out that he can leverage the Federal Treasury to his advantage by expanding Medicaid eligibility.
New York is well ahead on this learning curve.
According to a recent study published by State Policy Reports, the Empire State receives more federal dollars per capita than any other state and more than twice the national average, and they are also the toughest state on business taxes in the country today.
What's now dawning on Walmart's CEO Lee Scott is that his company is a middleman in this program, so on Sunday, he spoke directly to the governors and said there was too much politics in these state bills taking aim at his company.
Of course, that's exactly why more states will target Walmart and other employees in order to raise revenue to expand Medicaid.
Now, I want to tell you something, folks.
You can go you can get it all set over the port deal.
You can get as mad about that as you want.
This is what infuriates me.
This is this is this isn't just socialism.
It's worse than that.
It drives me nuts, and it is why I detest politicians.
We have come a long way from the Boston Tea Party to this.
I'll tell you why this is socialism.
Walmart is doing more for low-income people than politicians can.
That makes the politicians mad and it threatens them.
The Democratic Party, the American left, ought to be embracing Walmart.
If the Democratic Party really meant what it says about compassion for the less fortunate, for the poor, the hungry, the thirsty, and the whoever.
Then they ought to be riding Walmart to the bank.
They ought to be praising it, try to make Walmart their friends.
Walmart is a big illustration to low-income people that capitalism will accommodate their needs.
And there's a third thing.
They are using the power of the state, and this is the best definition to fit into what is socialism.
They are using the power of the state to try to force this private company to support Democrats and Democrat special interests.
Universal health care is a Democrat objective.
And they are going about it piecemeal, bit by bit, small chunks at a time, sort of like putting a frog in cold water and turning the heat on, the frog doesn't know he's boiling until it's too late.
This is this is simply and it's it's extortion.
Walmart's being told you buckle under and do this or else.
And the or else contains a whole lot of threats.
So the state of Maryland has told Walmart, the one company with over 10,000 employees in Maryland, maybe two or three others, you're going to pay this much of your health care coverage, and if you don't pay that much to your employees, you've got to give it to us.
That is now state law, and it's going to be emulated for every size company.
If you're a small business owner and you have fewer than a hundred employees, the day is coming where your state is going to tell you that you have to spend X on health care or give the balance to them.
It's their way of spending even more money they don't have by making you pay for it.
The people who are generating prosperity, the people who are generating the revenue or producing the wealth in this country, continue to be the targets, continue to be the uh the people with bullseye painted on them when the Democratic Party sees them.
The Democratic Party in the process, the American left, systematically destroying one industry after another.
Tobacco, oil, they're preventing exploration, they're driving up costs so they can impose windpaw profits taxes.
They're driving up costs so they can increase the state tax.
They're doing everything they can to harm these industries.
The automobile business.
That's not competitive anymore.
Partly due to the massive benefits for auto workers that have been imposed on the consumer in the price of the car who simply I'm not going to pay them.
They're not competitive because of all the benefits they've been forced to provide.
They're going after the drug companies, they're going after health care providers, and now retail stores like Walmart.
And in every case, the consumer and the employee ultimately suffers.
Take a look at the enemies list of the American left, you'll find American corporate success stories, large and small.
Take a quick time out.
We'll be back and continue in just a second.
One other uh interesting bit of Walmart news here.
Civil rights leader, former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young will become the public face of a Walmart backed group whose aim is to combat criticism.
Uh uh Walmart stores was among the financial backers of working families for Walmart, a group of people who understand and appreciate their positive impact on the working families of America.
That's according to its website.
Uh Andrew Young said the statement critics of Walmart have it wrong.
For those who care about the poor, it's time to step up, speak out, and join this national discussion.
So I don't know what effect it's gonna have, but uh Andrew Young will now defend Walmart publicly sometime, somewhere, somehow.
I'm gonna be a to see this.
I want I'm gonna see how this manifests itself.
I'm gonna see what happens to Andrew Young uh in the process.
Bakersfield, California.
Richard, welcome to the program.
Nice to have you with us.
Rush, after 14 years of listening to you and a few years of rush 24 7, I got a point going back to the first hour.
My membership had expired.
I figured I can handle it on my own.
And uh within the first 30 minutes, I was online renewing because I was so down and out seeing that 34% support Bush poll.
And to hear you go through that with the then the drive-by uh you know media analogy of a drive-by shooting to the way they report news.
I realize, you know, the the pulling me off the cliff aspect of your show enough is worth two years membership.
So I'm back in.
Well, I'm I'm thrilled.
Uh, and I'm gonna applaud your judgment on this too, because well, no, you know, uh this is I always say that that uh uh people think they're ready to graduate here from the institute.
Uh they've thought this throughout the uh eighteen years that I have hosted the program.
Many have thought they could do it themselves.
Many have thought that uh tried it at home.
And they seem to build well, the problem is that the education and the learning never stops.
Uh we all need teachers in life.
Um we never all reach a point where uh we know it all.
A few exalted people get to that level.
But it's very, very, very, very few.
Almost all of us need ongoing inspiration, motivation, teachers.
Side, sir, I have the time to research things that you don't.
Uh there are people that teach me, and I just pass it on to you.
We're glad to have you back, and it's a it's a it's a sound economic decision that you made.
And I think that's a great testimonial.
He he couldn't survive for 30 minutes without 24-7.
30 minutes.
He thought he had he thought he'd be ready to graduate even though there are no graduates here.
He's ready to move on.
He can handle it himself.
Thirty minutes.
And he realizes he's lost without this show and rush 24-7.
Ray in Livermore, California, I'm glad you called.
Welcome to the program.
Rush, thank you for the continuing education as usual.
It never stops here.
Um I'm in business.
I hire people, I hire them to complete work that I cannot do myself, and and on top of it to make some money, of course.
But I'm being told by government now I'm in business to provide benefits.
That when people walk in the door, it's I owe them insurance.
I owe them dot dot dot.
Is that what's happening, Rush?
There's a there's a there's a there's a model out there that people like you can look at, and that's General Motors.
Not too long ago, the GM or the CEO of General Motors said, you know, I, when I got this job, I thought I was going into the car business.
But it turns out I'm in the health care business.
And they've had to get rid of their pensions.
They've had to sell off or transfer their pension program for retired workers back to the government.
They're not going to get all the they just can't afford it.
The benefits that they have to offer uh current UAW workers uh have not enabled them to stay competitive with other manufacturers who don't have those benefits automatically built into the price of a car.
And it's just and it's all because either a union or but it's it's some liberal organization, government somewhere has come along and demanded.
And now they're gonna try to do it to Walmart, and they're just admitted they're gonna do it to every business, large and small in this country.
If it takes 20 years, they're gonna do it.
And they're gonna make it impossible for some of you currently in business to stay there.
It won't be worth your trouble.
Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have, serving humanity, executing assigned host duties flawlessly, doing everything right.
Ron in Chicago, welcome to the program, sir.
Great to have you with us.
Yeah, good afternoon, Rush.
You know, I'm listening to your show today, and I'm listening to this little Walmart issue that's going down with the 8% tax for so hopefully gonna supply some additional health care for some people.
Well, I'm a health insurance broker in Chicago, and I, even though this is my livelihood, I will be one of the first people that must say, you know, something needs to be something additional needs to be done for health care.
Uh the new health insurance programs, the HSAs, the HRAs, they're just not gonna cut it.
Uh people cannot afford these type of types of programs.
Yeah, I know.
People can't afford to stay at hotels either, and they can't afford to buy cars, and they can't uh they can't afford to uh go on vacation.
It's just tough out there.
Uh that's why we need income insurance, because people just don't make enough.
Well, that's what I'm saying.
You realize how absurd, you realize how absurd you're you're starting you're trying my patience here.
There's documented evidence that HSA's work.
I had it in the Wall Street Journal of Big, they've already done an analysis of where they're in place that's a couple days ago.
Brian threw the stack into file cap, I don't know where it is.
I'll have to dig it up later.
It's absurd.
People aren't gonna be able to afford the premiums or the costs they have to pay themselves.
People aren't gonna be able to afford 250 to 400 a year for their health care, with the balance of it being paid by their neighbors.
That's absurd.
That insults my intelligence.
Why should we have to buy anything for ourselves then?
Why?
That's less than people are gonna be spending on food.
Food's more important health care, because without food you die, and there's no health care that'll save you other than transfusion of food.
So we all need food insurance.
Where does this insanity stop?
If the the answer to the health care problem is not extortion of American businesses, like these Democrat legislators in Maryland and these other 36 states are trying to do.
That's not how you do it.
You don't take businesses who are working to produce a product or a service and a profit and pay people to do the work and hire them and so forth, and then say, we're gonna pay them all their health care and the government's gonna determine how much they get, and if you don't pay it, it's that or else.
That's extortion.
This is socialism.
As I say, we've come a long way from the Boston Tea Party.
Don't give me a 43% of America's not already dealt with that.
Forty-three percent of Americans are not insured.
How many of those are illegal aliens who are turn on telemundo and get instructions on how to call an ambulance instead of a cab to get to the emergency room where they get treated for free?
They don't need it.
And then you've got a host of Americans who are under 35 who are who are self-employed who haven't bought any health insurance yet because they're basing the odds that they're gonna need catastrophic uh health care later in life, not now.
Some people choose to self-insure like me.
That 43 figure, and besides, that 43 figures been out there.
When was it first popularized?
1990 to 1992 to campaign.
Oh, we've been doing spending more money on health care ever since, and they've still got the same.
I don't trust the number, just like there were three million homeless, that turned out to be not true when we actually did a homeless census.
This is all gobbledygook, folks.
It's all nothing more than you're everybody just being manipulated here.
Stop and think about how absurd is it to say people just they can't afford Rush.
I can't afford uh HSAs, RSA's, BSAs, SABs, whatever they're gonna be.
400 a year, I don't know how they can afford this, Rush.
People just can't pay that, right?
Well, if you can't afford 400 bucks a year for something that is so vitally important it occupies the national debate all the time.
If you can't afford that, and plus maybe a small portion of each visit to the doctor.
And of course, the overall purpose here is to lower prices.
You know, people can't afford uh three or four hundred dollars a night hotel room in New York either.
Let's give them hotel insurance.
People can't afford fly first class on their favorite commercial airliner.
Let's give them airline first class insurance.
But Rush, but Rush, health care is a right.
No.
It's more a responsibility than the right.
I'd become a right because it's we have a very competitive work sort workforce, and workers, employees can demand certain things from employers when they choose where they want to go to work.
This all started back in World War II, just like withholding did.
Try this.
You want to know where we're headed here.
The CEMB Surgery Center, Canada's most prominent private hospital, may be considered a rogue enterprise, accepting money from patients for operations they would otherwise receive free of charge in a public hospital, is technically prohibited in Canada.
Even in cases where patients would wait months or even years in discomfort before receiving treatment.
That's where you're going with universal health care.
People are having to wait, and you and we've heard the stories of doctors uh moving across the border down to the United States in order to work here.
But nobody's about to arrest Dr. Brian Day, who is president and medical director of the center, or any of the 120 doctors who work there.
Public hospitals are sending him growing numbers of patients that are too busy to treat, and his center is advertising that patients don't have to wait to replace their aching knees.
The country's publicly financed health insurance system, frequently described as the third rail of its political system and a core value of the national identity in Canada is gradually breaking down.
Private clinics are opening around the country by an estimated one a week, and private insurance companies are about to find a gold mine.
The country's publicly financed health insurance system is breaking down.
Canada's universal health care system is breaking down.
Private clinics are springing up illegally to meet demand, and nobody dares shut them down.
And people who would otherwise be able to get their malady treated free if they'll just wait and be patient for a few months or maybe a year are paying out of their own pockets to go to these clinics for their health care.
Well, hell's bells, you know, I'll bet you the price at this guy's clinics is pretty reasonable.
If this many people can go into, don't tell me that HSAs don't work.
Here is a modern HSA on display up in Canada, which is a rolling billboard for a failure of a state-run universal health care system.
It's so bad they don't dare shut the illegal operators down.
They're applauding them.
They're sending patients to them.
Now these patients are paying out of their pockets.
No health insurance coverage is covering these private clinics.
Now that what's going to happen is these uh health insurance companies are gonna get in on this and start selling coverage to go to the private clinic, and guess what?
The market is gonna force absolute change in the universal health care system because you know what?
It doesn't work.
There's a column here.
I've got a I've got to share that.
Thomas Sowell has a has a great column today.
Uh and it basically is the the premise of the column is you want something for nothing.
There are going to be strings attached, making it not for nothing.
Would you rather go through life with people paying that for you and that for you and that, but there are strings attached.
You can only buy that, you can only spend the money on this, you can only do or would you have to have freedom to spend your money your way as you wish.
Because there are always strings attached once you start accepting freebies.
That's why I don't.
I don't want to be obligated, I don't want to owe anybody anything.
I don't take them.
It always burns me up that the people are offered freebies are the ones who could easily afford these things.
But I, for one, reject them.
I mean, I mean, it it it just it just stands to reason here.
When you look at what's happening in Canada, the HSA system, health savings accounts, people paying for their own health care works.
Otherwise, this guy's clinic wouldn't stay in business, and he's got to be charging reasonable prices for what he's doing.
For that this many patients to be running through there and not complaining about it, and for it to have gotten so big that the Canadian government dares not shut it down because it's either that or people die.
Or they they continue to get worse with whatever malady they have.
Here is uh Kristen in Chicago.
Kristen, welcome to the program.
Hey Rush, Mega Midwestern Ditto.
Thank you.
Hey, I just think it's so crazy that people act like if you don't have insurance, you're out there blowing in the wind, you're not getting your stitches stitched, you're going to die from pneumonia.
I mean, I the hospital for 14 years.
There's not one person that was ever turned away.
And you could set up a payment plan on your bill if you had no coverage of any kind for 20 bucks a month for the rest of your life.
And they wouldn't ask for one more cent.
Or they wouldn't even ask for anything.
And they write it off.
But that's not fair.
What do you mean?
The previous caller.
What do you mean, charging me $20 a month for that major surgery I had to have for which I didn't have insurance?
What do you mean, charging me?
Who do you think you are getting away twenty dollars a month for the rest of my life?
Screw you.
Take your surgery back.
I'm not paying it.
And walk out the door.
Yeah, I think she's got a point.
Health health insurance is confused with health care.
Uh but it has.
It's it's it's it's become popularly demagogued as a as a as a right, and it uh it has become an entitlement.
And hey, by the way, I just let you know I have not lost touch.
I understand why the panic on this, it is exorbitantly expensive.
In this country today, most of you could not afford uh a hospital stay.
You'd have to finance it.
Just like your financial car, you finance your media room, your financial television.
It's just that when it comes to health care, we somehow have decided that that should be exempt from anything to do with uh market forces.
We we ought not have to uh deal with our health care the way we deal with other uh wants and needs like television sets and automobiles and second homes and so forth and so on.
There's a panic associated with the high price, and that's not going to end until the price comes down, and the price isn't going to come down unless market forces are introduced, and those will be introduced in the form of health savings accounts.
And it's just the first step, and it's uh gonna be a long road, but we can either do it that or we can do what we're doing with Social Security and everything else, just wait till it bombs out.
Just wait till it fails, just wait till it goes bust, just wait till it goes broke.
And then the United Arab Emirates are gonna come in and take over those businesses too.
And uh add on here a little uh bit of new information about another statistic that's been misreported by our drive-by shooters in the mainstream media.
A uh report that expensive illnesses led to nearly half of all personal bankruptcies is being challenged by researchers who looked at the same data and concluded that such costs had led to fewer than one in five.
So not 50%, but uh less than 20%.
The study looked at 1,771 bankruptcy filers in California, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Texas.
It said illnesses and medical bills were cited as the cause, at least in part of 46% of the bankruptcies.
That original study by David Himmelstein of the Harvard Medical School and colleagues was published on the internet by the Journal of Health Affairs last year.
The challenge by David Draenov and Michael Millenson of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern appears in today's internet edition of that journal.
It is uh it is uh insufficient to show that medical problems are associated with bankruptcy.
One must determine whether and to what extent medical spending causes bankruptcies.
The Himmelstein papers suggested that a Canadian-style national health insurance plan was a way to provide, I'm sorry, prevent medical bankruptcy.
Yeah, it's enhance death.
Increase death and increase sickness.
Yeah, but we'll we'll prevent medical bankruptcies.
What a I tell you, we got these these socialist liberals everywhere trying to gum up the works of an excellent free market system with their own puny little perverted ideas.
Now the other guys, the guys that challenge this research, Draenov and uh and Millinson contended that since they found medical costs were only a part of the bankruptcy problem, any insurance system broad enough to give financial protection would be so costly it might undermine the other safety net programs.
And by the way, a little bit a little bit to add something here on the port deal.
News reports over the last two weeks have repeatedly claimed that uh this Dubai outfit was taking control of six major U.S. ports, and elected officials irresponsibly or ignorantly been saying, Yeah, they're gonna run our security at the ports.
We can't hear, oh no, terrorism, Bush doesn't care anymore.
But according to one port security expert, uh Dubai Ports World will run just a tiny fraction of the terminals at the U.S. ports involved if the deal goes through.
There are 300 terminals in the all these ports.
Dubai Ports World is going to handle nine of them.
Yeah, Rush, I know, but that's now, but it's just a start.
He always says just like the guys in Maryland are going off slow, starting off slow against business.
The United Arab Emirates is going to take over everything.
Health care system are going to take over hotels, everything.
And just doing it a little bit at a time so we won't notice.
Yep.
I agree.
Mary in Cincinnati.
Welcome to the program.
Hello.
Hi, Rush.
I gotta tell you this this something for nothing mentality in regards to our health care system is going to ruin uh the health care in the city in this country.
Let me tell you, I am involved.
I work in surgery.
And what we have to take a certain amount of uh Medicaid patients.
And what we have been getting lately are people from a group home with drug addiction problems.
Well, not only are we, you know, we're getting a lot of them with hepatitis C. Not only are we losing money on the type of search we do involves very expensive equipment and supplies and certain things like that.
We lose money on the deal, and we're exposing ourselves to uh health risks as well.
If we were to stick ourselves on a needle, we get that hepatitis C. And also, you go into the waiting room to go tell the spouse or the co-partner of these people, and the children are there.
They have these expensive video games, expensive chimps, and you think they can buy this, but they can't buy their own health insurance or take the state.
That's that's exactly that's exactly right.
We've got to do it for the children.
They need the video games.
They need you're exactly right.
But do you realize your your eyes what what most people are gonna say when they hear you talk like that?
Probably that I went into the wrong profession, if that's the way I feel.
But you know, you can't stay in business.
Any every medical field is a business.
And if you want poor health care, then you I guess that's what we're gonna have if this continues.
Well, I know.
There's there's um there are big problems looming in it down the road, there's no question.
Part of the problem is indeed the entitlement something for nothing mentality that has um settled in on this particular business.
Uh I uh what by the way, what she means, folks, when she says that the health care is going to go out of get worse because she's saying she's gonna be driven out of business.
She won't be able to do what she's doing.
It won't it won't make any sense.
The tell you, something like in the last three years, eleven hospital emergency rooms in Southern California have closed because the people that came in couldn't pay anything.
Illegal aim illegal immigration is the is the culprit on this one.
They're just shutting down.
Uh, I mean, it's not a rampant problem yet.
We still have the best health care system in the world.
That's why this is so frustrating.
We have the best health care system in the world, and there are those hell-bent on destroying it all for the sake of the concept of socialism and big government.
And those of you who who think that somehow the government or your neighbors ought to be providing your health care if if you think that you're you're falling right into the trap.
The idea that your health care is different than anything else you want or need, uh that Rush, it's gotten so expensive.
Why do you think it's gotten so expensive?
That's why nobody's technol talking about making you pay for it all or any of that.
It's just a portion of it.
And then you get to keep what you don't spend.
Motivating you to spend less.
Back in just a second.
Subscriber to Rush 24 7 has an idea for Walmart and other businesses on how to combat this extortion being planned by state legislatures.
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