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July 28, 2009 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:22
July 28, 2009, Tuesday, Hour #3
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Time Text
On a cutting edge of societal evolution, doing what I was born to do.
So are you, by the way.
I was born to host you.
We're born to listen.
Rush Limbaugh at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Always a thrill and delight to have you with us.
So fastest three hours in media, two of them in the can.
One more to go.
Telephone number if you want to join us today.
800-282-2882 and the email address L Rushbow at EIBNet.com.
All right, we have a couple sound bites here from uh President Obama who's out there at the uh at the town hall at uh AARP headquarters.
And by the way, Andrea Mitchell, and we see me watching them, when she introduced the show, she actually said Obama was appearing before a willing audience.
A willing audience.
That's that's an interesting way to describe a bunch of people that have been picked and chosen and screened.
A willing audience as opposed to people who don't want anything to do with this.
So we have these two sound bites.
Uh see new wrinkle he rolls out here.
Listen to this.
We also want to start rewarding doctors for quality, not just the quantity of care that they provide.
Instead of rewarding them for how many procedures they perform or how many tests they order, well, bundle payments, so providers aren't paid for every treatment they offer with a chronic uh to a patient with a chronic condition like diabetes, but instead are paid for how are they managing that disease overall.
Oh no, this is getting this is getting worse by the day.
Now Obama and his panel are gonna judge the work of the doctors, not just the quantity, they're going to determine whether or not the doctor did the proper number of tests and handed out quality care.
My gosh, folks.
This is becoming more and more Orwellian every time this man opens his mouth about it.
We want to start rewarding doc doctors' work, they get paid.
What is this reward business?
Who are you to reward them anyway?
Who the hell are you?
You you your career has been five minutes.
You spent a hundred and fifty days working in the Senate.
You organized riots and communities and stuff in Chicago, and he's now gonna run the medical business and appoint people to determine how well doctors are doing their jobs.
Listen to that.
Play the play that soundbite again.
Play that soundbite again.
Play that soundbite again.
We also want to start rewarding doctors for quality, not just the quantity of care that they provide.
Instead of rewarding them for how many procedures they perform or how many tests they order.
Well, bundle payments, so providers aren't paid for every treatment they offer.
Bundle to a patient with a chronic condition like diabetes, but instead are paid for how are they managing that disease overall.
How would you know?
How in the world would you know?
Bundle payments?
So providers aren't paid for every treatment they offer with a crop patient with a chronic condition like diabetes.
What's a question?
The official program observer has a question.
What's a question?
Mm-hmm.
Well, that's a that's a good question.
The program observer has just asked me.
Some patients are lousy patients.
Some patients refuse to cooperate.
Some people with diabetes go in and get the insulin shot, think they can have a piece of cake and a bowl of potato chips or what have you.
And then, you know, not long they're on dialysis.
Well, I got I I got a tie can answer this question for you.
You sh you are going to be denied coverage if you aren't trying to help do the right thing for yourself.
You are not going to be treated.
You're going to be deemed too expensive.
The investment in you is not going to be worth it.
Where else can this possibly go with just listen to this one soundbite?
If I'm a doctor in this country and I hear that, if I'm if I'm one of the 40 willing people at this put up phony seminar today, and I hear this man who nobody knows.
We know more about his friendship with Skip Gates than we know about his five-minute career, is gonna sit there in judgment of the quality of the work doctors do.
I can't wait to listen to this next soundbite.
I can't wait to listen to this next soundbite.
Here's a guarantee that I've made.
If you have insurance that you like, then you will be able to keep that insurance.
Nope.
If you've got a doctor that you like, you will be able to keep your doctor.
No.
Let me also address, I think, a misperception that's been out there that somehow there is any discussion on Capitol Hill about reducing Medicare benefits.
Nobody is talking about reducing Medicare benefits.
Yes, they are.
Medicare benefits are there because people contributed into a system.
It's bankrupt.
We don't want to change it.
What we do want is to eliminate some of the waste that is being paid for out of the Medicare Trust Fund that could be used more effectively to cover more people and to strengthen the system.
Next, next he's going to do a seminar on how to build a bubble car.
And he's going to sit in judgment of the people that do that.
There are cuts in Medicare.
Heritage has found them.
Let me tell you something else, folks.
I uh at his press conference last Wednesday night, he insulted doctors by accusing them of doing unnecessary organ removals to line their pockets.
He's insulting them again here.
They don't do quality work.
He's going to reward them if they do quality work.
And let me tell you the clincher here.
How in the world can they possibly know whether you've got quality care without getting into your medical records?
That's the only way they can know.
They're going to digitize them, make them electronic.
How else?
They can't have an Obama care bureaucrat in every doctor's office watching the procedure, graving it on a clipboard, and sending the results back to the Oval Office.
They can't do it that way.
Oh, it's insisting it's not government controlled, it's not going to cost any more money.
You're not going to lose your doctor.
Your doctor might get canned.
If Obama doesn't think your doctor's doing quality work, and if you are an uncooperative patient, you know, if the doctor diagnoses you as uh you got a high cholesterol and prescribes whatever the drug for that is, and if you don't take it, well, how are they gonna know whether you're taking the medicine or not?
Well, that uh they they can they know it, it'll be prescribed, but how do they know whether you're taking it?
What if you go in and the doctor says, Yeah, well, I had have you been taking the medicine?
You say, Yes, when you haven't, well, then you've just created a problem for the doctor.
I I I this is so insulting.
Insulted insurance companies too Wednesday night.
Their profits are immoral.
Where are you gonna squeeze those profits?
But you're gonna be able to keep your doctor gonna keep your insurance plan, you're gonna keep everything.
The hubris, the absolute hubris.
Where are just loads and loads of people asking, who the hell are you to judge the quality of medical care?
Who the hell are you?
Show me in the Constitution where this fits the job description.
Play that play sound by 28 again.
This is mind-blowing.
We also want to start rewarding doctors for quality, not just the quantity of care that they provide.
Instead of rewarding them for how many procedures they perform or how many tests they order.
Well, bundle payments, so providers aren't paid for every treatment they offer with a chronic uh to a patient with a chronic condition like diabetes, but instead are paid for how are they managing that disease overall?
As though a disease is manageable in every patient.
I am.
Look, I understand this guy better than anybody, and I am still stunned by this.
There ought not be one doctor in this country supporting this.
There ought not be one nurse because they're gonna be culpable too.
You know, they're in the they're in the game.
And we gonna let's let's get into dentistry now and start judging the quality of that.
And how much dentistry is cosmetic and is going to be taxed at 10%.
Now, remember at the infomercial that ABC did for Obama back in June, or maybe it was earlier this month, I forget, but it's last 30 days or so.
In commercial on Wednesday night from the East Room with Obama taking questions.
Remember the woman that got up and asked him about her 100-year-old mother who was taken in, and the doctor said, Look, uh you uh you need a pacemaker, I can't do anything else for you, and I'm I'm not gonna put a pacemaker in you, you're a hundred years old.
So the woman and her mother went to another specialist who said, you know, you got a lot of spunk.
I think I'm I'll be glad to do it.
And five years later, she's perfectly fine with the pacemakers, 105 years old.
This woman, whose mother got the pacemaker at age 100, asked the president of the United States.
Now stop and think of this.
I can understand this question being asked of Fidel Castro.
I can understand this question being asked of Hugo Chavez.
I can understand some surf citizen pleading with his leader to let his mother live.
But I can't imagine that in this country.
And it happened.
And this woman stood up.
Are you going to take into account Mr. President?
Dr. Obama, are you going to take into account a person's spirit and their desire to live?
Do you know what Obama said?
Look, the first thing for all of us to understand is we actually have some choices to make about how we want to deal with our own end-of-life care.
We can't get into spirit and spunk.
We as a culture and as a society can start to make better decisions within our families and for ourselves.
At least we can let doctors know and your mom know.
You know what?
Maybe this isn't gonna help.
Maybe you're better off not having that surgery, but taking the painkiller.
That question was asked, and that answer was given in the United States of America.
That question was asked in the White House.
Those are the kinds of fearful questions people who live in banana republics ask.
And the answer is always no, unless the family is somewhat prominent.
Now I also wanted to share this quote with you because the Republicans send out mail newsletters to constituents.
Representative Ken Calvert, who is a Republican from California, attempted to mail a newsletter to his district covering the issue of health care.
And the Democrats made him remove that quote I just read to you of the president from the newsletter.
He was forced to remove that language, it was called offensive by the Democrats.
He was forced to remove that offensive language before Democrats on the franking commission would approve payment of postage for the mailing.
Connie Hare has this at Human Events.
I, I, uh...
Now here's this great wordsmith.
Here's this great communicator who's really got a communication problem these days.
Here's this smart, elegant, young, articulate president.
And he's saying so many things that are embarrassing that the Democrats are not letting Republicans put his own words in mailings that they're sending out.
This is the United States of America.
You doctors out there, you know what you're facing?
If you stay in this business and this thing happens, you are be you're you are going to become indentured federal servants.
And you're going to have reports, who knows how often, on your work, patient by patient, and somebody in Washington is going to say whether or not you're doing quality work.
And if it's judged that you're doing quality work, and I'll guarantee you this the odds are that if you are a Republican doctor and you have not donated to Democrats, and there's no record of you making campaign contributions to Democrats or Obama, your work will not be judged as often as quality as Democrat doctor donors' work will be judged as quality.
And you're going to be filling out these reports, or somebody is, and they're going to be getting into patient medical records to find out what you've been doing in order to judge your work.
And then they're gonna squeeze your costs and payments.
And they're gonna bundle payments.
Whatever the hell that means.
The bundled payment business.
How would you like to have a job where you get paid in bundles?
Whatever the hell that is.
And all of it from Washington.
Or some mythical insurance company.
Anyway, we're a little long, a brief time out.
We will come back, grab more of your phone calls and uh funny things erupted at a Claire McCaskill town meeting.
A bunch of tea partiers showed up and outnumbered her Democrat supporters.
And this is what these members of Congress are gonna face when they go home for the August read.
And McCaskill didn't even show up.
She said staff.
We'll be back.
Don't go away.
Hang on, I'm waiting for the printer.
Spitzing out.
Whoa!
Whoa.
We got more Obama bites.
Now wait for one.
Okay, I've been told.
I've been told what bundling payments is.
Oh, you know what it is.
Well, tell me what it is.
I want to make sure that the caller's right because we know I am.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Yeah, they basically withhold payments and they send a bunch of payments at once in a bundle.
So there's no cash flow for the doctors here.
It's just whenever the government gets around to doing it.
And of course, if they don't do it, where else are you gonna go?
There's nowhere else they were gonna have a monopoly on this.
You know the uh I I cannot tell you, folks, how offensive this is and how dangerous we are at a dangerous time in this nation's life.
We have a president who doesn't know up from down, we have a president who knows nothing about anything in the private sector.
All he knows is that he doesn't like it.
He thinks it's unjust, it's immoral and it's unfair.
The wrong people get rich, the wrong people get poor, and he's bound and determined to fix it.
So now he's setting himself up after putting doctors down again as the judge of the quality of their work or some agency that he's going to appoint.
And I'm sure that his agency will be full of other doctors.
You know what, Mr. President, I gotta I got an idea for you.
As I look at it, the thing you do run is an absolute embarrassing mess.
The United States government is a mess.
We are bloated with debt.
You have taken money from grandchildren not yet born in order to finance this destruction of this capitalist system private economy that you don't like because you don't think it's fair.
The federal government is an absolute disaster.
You do run that.
How about increasing the quality of services of the federal government?
Notice he never does anything about what he is actually in charge of.
He is reaching out to be in charge of everything else but what he's in charge of.
He takes no responsibility for anything that he is already running.
He always takes and talks prospectively, because that way he can avoid accountability.
Now, I mentioned earlier in um in this program that the latest villain, it used to be smoking, and it used to be um uh trans fats and so forth.
Now obesity.
That's the big villain.
There's an interesting quote here from the Centers for Disease Control.
Multiple accounts this morning of the Centers for Disease Control calling for taxes on food and soda pop in order to pay for health care reform.
But here's a quote from the chief of the Center For disease control.
Listen to this now.
Reversing obesity is not going to be done successfully with individual effort.
So with I mean, just one, two, three, four, five, six, ten minutes.
Ten words.
Just wipe out the whole notion of personal responsibility.
You, if you need to lose weight, you can't do it with individual effort.
Well, what do you mean?
Who's going to do it?
Isn't the answer obvious?
No, no, no.
They are going this see that what this is is another open avenue, open door for them to control aspects of your behavior, which is what this health care plan's really all about.
So here comes the head of the centers for disease control.
Says, yeah, we've we figured it out.
Reversing obesity is not going to be done successfully with individual effort.
The sentence would continue, we are going to have to do it for you.
Whatever that entails, making you enroll in some fat farm or controlling what you can buy food-wise, what you can eat, how many calories a day you can eat, because really, see, you're putting stress on the health care system, just like all those smokers were.
When we get rid of at least half the people who smoke, why look at all the money we're gonna say?
Well, haven't saved a dime.
Smoking's been largely cut in half.
It's all just disguised compassion.
It's all it is.
Nah, it's not compassion, it's disguised loss and erosion of liberty as compassion.
We'll be back.
We gotta ask ourselves a question.
Why?
Why all these attacks on doctors?
The cosmetic tax, this the cosmetic surgery tax is an attack, is attack, it's an attack on doctors.
Saying that pediatricians schedule unnecessary surgeries for kids so they can line their pockets is an attack, and now this man is going to judge their work.
And he he doesn't apologize for what he's doing to impugn an entire profession.
Why, doctor?
Why what in in whose mind, in whose polluted mind are doctors the enemy?
But they damn sure appear to be with this man.
Just like the big oil executives are the enemy, and just like the insurance agents are the enemy.
What it wall street executives are the enemy?
Car executives are the enemy.
What is Obama going to protect the doctors from the folks at pitchforks?
Is he the only guy stay- What what is this?
What is the what is the reason for the attack, the demonization of all of these different endeavors.
He's demonizing them to clear the field, folks.
Like the car execs and like Wall Street.
Doctors are being undermined and attacked in order to get this stupid bill passed.
He wants as many people to think that the problem in health care is two things.
They're greedy doctors, and super greedy insurance agents.
I I'm just I'm I'm I'm I'm seething if you want to.
This is this that that first soundbite we played, he's gonna judge the quality of their work and bundle their payments.
All right, so here's we've got we've got four more in a doozy one when he talks about death, but um here, let's just get to them in order.
You get these stories where oh, there's a trillion dollars here, a trillion dollars there.
After a while, it starts being real money, uh, even here in Washington.
And so I understand people being scared that this is gonna be way too costly.
It's not that costly if we start making changes right now.
We spend about six thousand dollars per person more than any other industrialized nation on earth.
Six thousand more than the people do in Denmark or France or Germany or every one of these other countries spend about at least 50% less than we do.
And you know what?
They're just as healthy.
I'm just very few things can render me speechless.
Okay, Well, Mr. President, the next time one of your two little girls gets sick, fly them over to Denmark.
Don't burden the U.S. health care system, which is the best in the world, and the best costs.
Let's just keep firing away.
I don't know how much longer I can objectively analyze this dribble, but here's another one.
I do think this is a concern that people have generally.
My interest is not in getting between you and your doctor.
Stop that tape, right?
Go back and grab number 28.
I do think this is a concern.
I have no interest getting between you and your doctor.
Plate cut 28 again.
We also want to start rewarding doctors for quality, not just the quantity of care that they provide.
Instead of rewarding them for how many procedures they perform.
What do you think?
Or how many tests they order.
Well, bundle payments, so providers aren't paid for every treatment they offer.
What with a chronic to a patient with a chronic condition like that?
Okay, sorry.
Reward the doctors for quality health care.
And then and then here that number 31 again.
I do think this is a concern that people have generally.
My interest is not in getting between you and your doctor.
But although keep in mind right now, insurance companies are often getting between you and your doctor.
Oh, what we've said is we just want to provide some guidelines to Medicare as and and by uh extension, the private sector, about what works and what doesn't.
Uh, some of you may have heard we wanted to set up what we're calling an IMAC, a independent medical advisory committee that would, on an annual basis, provide recommendations about what treatments work best and what gives you the best value for your health care dollar.
loud, you're going to need to go to a library before you go to the doctor.
There's always a but.
There's always an although.
My interest is not getting between you and your doctor, although keep in mind right now, insurance companies are often getting between you.
Yeah, yeah, hate those insurance companies.
Screw them.
We're gonna get even with them, right?
Here's the next one.
The reason this has been controversial is a lot of people have heard this phrase socialized medicine.
And they say we don't want government-run health care.
We don't want a Canadian style plan.
Nobody's talking about that.
We're saying, let's give you a choice.
Stop the tape.
We just got through listening to three sound bites where some of the most intricate, delicate, complicated, complex control of the health care system was just explained, and now he says that's not gonna happen.
Here, play 32 again.
I promise not to interrupt it.
The reason this has been controversial is a lot of people have heard this phrase socialized medicine.
And they say we don't want government-run health care.
We don't want a Canadian-style plan.
Nobody's talking about that.
We're saying let's give you a choice.
You can choose the private marketplace or this other uh uh uh approach.
And I got a letter the other day from a woman.
She said, I don't want government run health care.
I don't want socialized medicine, and don't touch my Medicare.
And and you know, you you know, I I wanted to say, well, you know, I mean, this is that's what Medicare is, is it's a government-run health care plan that people are very happy with.
Medicare is a government-run plan that people are very happy with.
Well, we don't want to run your government, though.
We don't want to run your health care.
We're gonna give you keep it and keep your option.
Folks, this man is he's prevaricating.
None of this is true.
This is just breathtaking that this took place inside of a half hour.
Now, this this next one, he gets a question.
This is a teletown hall, that's what they called it.
And you got a he got a call.
Caller said, I've heard lots of rumors going around about this new plan.
I hope that the people are gonna vote, are gonna read every single page.
I've been told that everyone that is Medicare age will be visited and told to decide how they wish to die.
This bothers me greatly.
I would like for you to promise me that this is not in the bill.
I guarantee you, first of all, uh, we just don't have enough government workers to send to talk to everybody to to find out how they they they want to die.
I think that the only thing that may have been proposed in some of the bills, and I actually think this is a good thing, uh, is that uh it makes it easier for people to fill out a living will.
Everything is going to be up to you.
Uh, and if you don't want to fill out a living will, you don't have to.
I just want to be clear.
Nobody's gonna be knocking on your door, nobody's gonna be telling you you've got to fill one out.
Uh, and certainly nobody's gonna be uh forcing you to make a uh set of decisions on end of life care uh based on you know some bureaucratic law in Washington.
Yes, raise that's that's exactly right.
The bureaucrat's gonna make the decision.
You aren't.
You're not gonna have any say in the matter, and it's in the House bill.
Once you reach, I don't know what the age is, every five years.
It's in the 60s, and every five years, some counselor shows up to start counseling you, but okay, we both know that you got a lot more years behind you than you have uh front of you.
We gotta talk about what the next few years hold and look at your health as it is now.
And oh, by the way, here's a living will we want you to fill out here?
And um, when he says they don't have enough government workers to uh go around and counsel people, the answer to that is we don't have enough yet, but we can get them.
We can get them from the union, we can get them from the service employees union, we can get them from uh the teamsters.
How would you like some of those guys coming in to counsel you at your end of life?
Well, I know now it's it does sound funny, but I'm telling I'm telling you this this is this is frightening and it's real.
Medicare can only work, folks, because of private doctors, private drug companies, private innovations in health care.
That's the only way where there's nobody in government right now making our health care system work.
They have nothing to do with it.
But all of a sudden, for some reason, enough people, although it's not a majority, but clearly a lot of people think this man is qualified to manage all this, to design this and manage it.
I guess uh we'll take a break here, but we'll get to your phone calls when we come back.
And cookie save the Claire McCaskill um the town hall that fell apart yesterday for tomorrow.
Here's uh brief timeout, an obscene profit center timeout.
We'll be right back.
Okay, we are back.
El Rushbo serving humanity simply by being here.
Just by showing up.
Snerdley, you asked uh how CDCDC, when I gave you the quote that uh diets people just can't lose weight with individual effort.
Right here it is the the state-run media is already on board with the whole notion that the obese are villains and are somehow damaging all the rest of us.
And they have to be dealt with.
LA Times log right here, my formerly nicotine fingers.
Tough love for f people tax their food to pay for health care.
Tax their food to pay for health care.
Okay, let's go up to Port St. Lucy.
And uh let's go to McDonald's.
And in comes your average obese Port St. Lucian.
Do they have to get on a scales before they order?
They have to print bring in proof from a government weighing scale that they weigh whatever they weigh, and then they pay an additional tax on their McNuggets.
And if they're out of McNuggets, do they pay an additional tax on the 911 call to report it?
Let's go to um the quick shop, the convenience store in Rio Linda.
And somebody walks in there to buy a six-pack of beer and some cancer-causing hot dogs.
And they're overweight, according to some say who uh people dead serious.
And here's drive by media, state-run media, LA Times, all for the notion.
I got I I I want to play one more Obama soundbite, play it again here because I think in this soundbite, he's got a question Am I gonna be able to see a cardiologist if I have a heart condition or other specialist, or is is that all gonna be primary care?
I I'm I'm calling it rationing of care.
That's the question, and here's his answer.
And I think in this answer, we have I finally we don't even need doctors.
We're not even going to need them.
Listen to this answer.
I do think this is a concern that people have generally.
My interest is not in getting between you and your doctor.
Although keep in mind right now, insurance companies are often getting between you and your doctor.
What we've said is we just want to provide some guidelines to Medicare as and by uh extension, the private sector, about what works and what doesn't.
Okay, so you may have heard we're we don't stop we don't need doctors.
Just put out the list of what works best.
Just put a list out.
Medicare can handle this, right?
Just put out a list of what works best and have somebody do that.
Can you President United States?
I don't want to get between you and your doctor.
That's something.
Nikhil Gorbachev would say.
Except they didn't have many doctors over there.
Fred in Cleveland.
Hello, sir.
Welcome to the one and only EIV network.
Rush, it's a true honor.
Megadiddoes from a conservative entrepreneur in Cleveland.
Thank you very much, sir.
You got it.
My point is, I think that uh our president and his liberal agenda and his Chicago uh thug politics are coming to a head.
And I think that the American people are finally waking up.
Uh, and I think uh the door's been open over 30 or 40 years of them manipulating our education.
I think Obama's trying to kick the door wide open, and I think it's too early and too soon.
I don't think they have the power to do it.
And I think people are coming alive and realizing what his true agenda is, and we're gonna put a stop to it.
I think in uh if we can win some seats in 010.
Let me tell you something.
Let me tell you something.
I do believe this.
I do believe more and more people are saying this is not who we thought we were voting for.
We thought we were voting some magical post racial, post-partum, post-partisan I said it on purpose.
Politician.
And they're not, this is not this is not who people voted for.
But he doesn't care.
He can see the polls now, Fred.
He can see that nobody wants his plan and nobody wants his cap and trade plan.
That's not gonna stop him.
Uh whether or not, you know, I have I I think there have been so many instances in history where people should have seen the follies of liberalism that they would never ever get elected in large numbers ever again.
But they do.
Because they are filled with deceit.
Obama would not have gotten elected had this agenda been perfectly laid out as he's executing it.
Wouldn't have stood a chance.
That's why people are starting to say this is not the guy I voted for.
Then you've got some people just scared to death, like these poor people, these 40 or whatever was willing participants in the Tella Town Hall today.
They're just scared that they're gonna lose their medical coverage and treatment.
And anything that they can hear that reassures them that's not gonna happen.
It may, in fact, get better, and a couple billionaires are gonna actually pay for it.
At some point in your life, that's really all you care about.
So, anyway, it's this has been a great day for eye-opening.
It's still shocking.
We are at a perilous path.
These are dangerous times in our country.
I hope Fred from Cleveland is right about the number of people waking up.
But as my good friend Michael Ladine says, faster, please.
Be back after this.
Here's how the obese will beat the fat tax.
The fat guy will find a little skinny kid to go in and buy his Big Mac McNuggets and French fries.
In exchange, the fat guy will go to the liquor store and buy the little kids' booze.
And this well, Americans are industrious and creative, and this is how they'll get around the fat tax.
You'll never see more skinnier people in fast food restaurants when that tax hits.
See you tomorrow, folks.
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