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Dec. 23, 2009 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:28
December 23, 2009, Wednesday, Hour #2
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Merry Christmas seasons greetings, uh, America.
Uh America's anchor man is away today.
This is your undocumented anchor man, Mark Stein sitting in.
Uh and great to be with you, all things considered, even as the Republic trembles on the brink.
Uh Olymbia Snow, Olympia Snow is on TV right now, saying something moderate and centrist and bipartisan and reaching across the aisle like and that is never, and that is never a good sign.
I don't know, I don't know what she's saying.
I don't need to know what she's saying, uh but uh but uh it's not good it's not good news, it's not good news.
This th this bill.
Rush talked about this a couple of uh days ago, and he was absolutely right about this.
This this idea that uh all through the summer, as the numbers tanked on this, in other words, uh the Republicans won, the Conservatives won, the Tea Party's won, the protests won the argument in the court of public opinion.
They changed the terms of the debate.
Uh and what happened, even as public opinion turned against this monstrosity, it advanced procedurally through uh the House of Representatives and now through the Senate.
And I think really relatively early on, uh the Democrats decided the the the the key strategic thinkers in Congress, with by which I mean the sort of Pelosi Barney Frank branch of the Democratic Party.
Now, if you think about it from their point of view, Nancy Pelosi represents uh San Francisco, Barney Franks in Massachusetts.
These are not typical, not typical parts uh of the United States.
They're there's some in they're some of the most liberal left-wing parts of the United States.
And so if you're uh Nancy Pelosi or Barney Frank, what you'd what you'd like is a situation in which more of America was like San Francisco or Massachusetts.
What's the quickest way to get to that?
A uh a government annexation of health care.
Uh because that makes big government a given in the in the course of your political culture from now on.
And for conservatives, what it means is if you look at uh the situation in uh in Canada or Europe, generally speaking, what you find you have to do, you've got to introduce taxes to pay for the health care, because whatever they tell you here, by the way, and the CBO uh I got nothing against the CBO, they're no doubt they're perfectly pleasant fellows, but I got uh what they are failing, I think, to understand, is that the minute you have government health care, you can never find enough money to pay for it.
No way, no how.
Uh and there are two ways of doing it.
You you restrict access to the guy on the receiving end.
So that's why they make people wait for surgery, and that's why they deny them certain procedures and certain drugs under these systems.
Uh but the other way to do it is, of course, obviously just to uh increase taxes and raise taxes.
So if you think about what else would the uh what else would these ambitious Democrats like Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi like to have?
Well, maybe the value-added tax that they have in uh in Europe, uh, for example.
This is a this is not like a sales tax, by the way.
This is this is far more fun than a sales tax, because you add you you essentially tax the value that's added everywhere, everywhere along the line in the in the uh in the process.
So that if you make a certain product, it begins, you add a fifteen percent, it's usually I think whatever it is now, seventeen and a half percent or whatever uh attacks at that stage, then you add something else to it and you add to uh make the product a little better, then somebody adds the final gloss to it and adds another seventeen and a half percent, and then you put it in the store counter and sell it, and the seventeen and a half percent on that.
And that means that everybody in the process along the way becomes a tax collector for the federal government, and you you spend ages in paperwork calculating uh your VAT and uh w w what you can claim back because if you buy if you're registered for value added tax in Europe, you can deduct the cost of your stamps or whatever, which is nothing, which is nothing.
It's just a big so you went to filling tons of paperwork and then uh eventually being able to be uh yeah, yeah, it'll be one of the it'll be another one of these things when they introduce it that the uh that it'll only apply to the richest one percent.
But the richest one percent, what percentage of America now falls into the richest one percent and and under these Democrat uh spending plans?
And this is the way it's g this is just the way it's gonna be.
And at certain point, as you may be thinking, if you're if you've got a small tanning salon and you're being subject to the ten percent uh tanning tax.
And by the way, by the way, why stop there?
Why not just have like ten percent if you get just like a little uh tax, if you're just uh getting a little light tan.
If you say like one of these pasty wan grey, wayfaced uh New Hampshire rights, just go in there and you're having a little light tan just to take the pasty way gray facedness off you, you pay the ten percent.
But e if you want the deep golden, beautifully bronzed, uh like you've been on the beach at Tahiti type tan, why don't we increase that to 17 and a half or twenty-three percent?
Why not have a sliding tax uh for for the for the tanning bed?
Uh and if you think that's not occurring to some of them, as the revenues start to fall, as they're not getting the expected revenues from the tanning bed, don't think they won't be thinking about things like that.
At some point you get sick of uh of regulation.
Uh just sicker regulation.
I uh did something a few weeks ago, and I won't uh I won't mention her name to avoid embarrassing her, but I hired somebody who happened to reside in New York State.
And I have never I I did this innocently, thinking it didn't make any big deal, because uh uh I'm a New Hampshire corporation, and New Hampshire is a reasonably simple system uh uh when it comes to taxation and uh regulation.
But I cre I thought I'd do New York State a favor and create a job.
Not not they've driven Russia out and they've driven all these other people out, but I thought I'd create a job in New York State.
So uh we we get a call a couple of days later and say, oh now wait a minute, this person you've hired lived in New York State.
That means we'll have to register with the state of New York.
And uh so we go, wait a minute, what does that actually mean?
So we then ha register as a registered employer with the state of New York.
And the next thing you know, we've run up uh a hundred and s seventy-three dollars in new rolls of fax paper from the government forms faxed over from the state of New York that we have to fill in.
You've got to fill in the form that says uh that uh licenses you to hire somebody from the state of New York, the form that entitles you to be a licensed employer in the State of New York, the form that in uh says that you've compli you filled in the other form, so you've filled in the license application for the form compliance form application license.
And it just goes on and on and on.
And the reality is, the reality is uh uh no disrespect to this New Yorker, it would be far easier for me as a New Hampshire employer to hire somebody from Singapore or Hong Kong or Malaysia or Uzbekistan than to hire someone in New York.
There's no incentives when people say, Oh, well, you know, we're out so uh sourcing uh outsourcing all these jobs overseas.
Good!
Good!
I tell you something, I'd far rather hire somebody from Uzbekistan.
If there's a Uyghur out there, a Uyghur out there in a Cambodian detention facility, why not get yourself why not say to you, you don't need to sell me to China, I'm gonna I'm gonna work for Mark Stein now, because it'll be less paperwork for me to hire the Uyghur in Cambodia than it is to hire an American in the state of New York.
That is what has gone wrong with this country.
Uh and the idea that you can just impose these burdens endlessly without killing America is a delusion, a complete delusion.
Uh and what's happening now when we see the failure, you know, Schwarzenegger now is saying, what's uh what's he's Schwarzenegger is threatening to close down the state.
If he doesn't get eight billion dollars, he's threatening to close down the state of California.
Good, saw it off, float it out to sea.
Because uh where what's gonna happen is that the three or four remaining solvent jurisdictions in this country, I don't know where they are.
I think New Hampshire's still one of them.
I think there's an unknown U.S. Yeah, there's the one of the U.S. Virgin Islands, I think uh it's uh I think it's an uninhabited atoll that uh that uh reemerged from from the Caribbean Sea when Barack Obama fulfilled his campaign pledge to lower the oceans.
These this uninhabited atoll in the Virgin Islands and uh maybe a couple of other states, uh the last solvent jurisdictions i i uh uh under U.S. sovereignty, and they're gonna have to bail out everybody else.
Uh and and and this big shape, you know, California is now too big to fail, too big to fail.
Cala California, Uh so we're gonna have the almighty cash for clunkers for Californian clunkers for thirty million Californian clunkers who've messed up their state and delivered it into the hands of uh uh of uh Arnold Schwarzenegger, the so-called you know, socially liberal, fiscally conservative Republican.
Well, a lot of that funny enough, funny enough, all a lot of that social liberalism seems to come with a huge price tag attached.
And and when the fiscal conservatism meets the social liberalism, it's the fiscal conservatism that buckles every time.
Uh we're gonna have to we're gonna have to now pay to bail out California, oh if you don't give me eight billion dollars now, give me eight billion dollars now, or the state gets it.
Go ahead, punk, make my day, I say.
Uh anyway, anyway.
1-800-282-28.
It's Christmas.
It's Christmas.
I need to be I should be more in a pericomo mood.
I should have worn the patterned sweater and be in the rocking chair singing, I'll be home for Christmas.
I should be more bello.
It's the it's the day before Christmas Eve.
1-800 282 uh 2882.
The health care the health care uh is key to this because it is the fastest route to a permanent left of center uh political culture.
Uh and uh the Democrats understand that, that it's not about health care.
That's why that's why, in case you haven't noticed, the bill doesn't do anything for health care.
There's twenty-five the bill, the proponents of the bill concede that even if this bill passes, you know, we were originally told it's to do uh it's to it's because there's so many people uninsured in America.
There's still gonna be twenty-five million people uninsured under the bill.
Uh so hang on a minute.
What w what what kind of you what what what what kind of health care bill is that then?
It doesn't do anything for them.
Uh it doesn't do anything for young, healthy people who are going to be charged huge amounts of money that bear no relation to their likely costs of needing health care uh or requiring treatment for health care.
It doesn't do anything for old timers who've had it great for for so long under this system.
Uh it's not it's not gonna it's not gonna lower costs.
It's uh what what does it do is it it expands government.
This is a government health care bill that's all government and no health care.
Uh and that's the genius of these guys, that they understand that's what it's about.
It's like the environment.
No, nobody really cares.
That's why the if you talk to the environmental crowd, they don't care whether it's global cooling, global warming, whether it's fifty-four and partly cloudy.
It makes no difference because the whole thing is an excuse and it's an excuse uh to expand government.
That's why if it's hot, you need more government regulation.
If it's cold, you need more government regulation.
And it and between the two of them, between health care and the environment, uh that licenses government to regulate every single thing you do in your life.
And that's the attraction of it.
Uh that the minute the minute uh it provides a pretext for regulating every single aspect of your life.
And that's the genius of this bill.
Uh the government health care bill, all government, no health care.
Uh that's what the Democrats have succeeded in ramming down the throats of this nation.
And it has terribly grave implications.
Now, I I I don't want to be all gloomy day before Christmas, so I'm uh I'll get out the pericomo pattern sweater and we'll try and jolly things up.
But it's uh it's gonna be tough.
It's gonna be tough.
1-800-282-2882.
Mark Stein in for rush, lots more straight ahead.
Uh that's uh that's my uh holiday.
That's my holiday single with my uh friend from uh the West End stage uh and uh TV's Doctor Who and a lot of other things, uh Jessica Martin over over in London.
Santa Claus is covered at I don't care what you say, that's better than that Paul McCartney wonderful uh Christmas time.
Is that is that EIB approved Christmas uh music, Mike?
Yeah, Mike's uh looking.
Uh at the end of that um at the end of that this is by the way where big government regulation comes in as well.
Just make a I'll just this is this is genius now.
I'm gonna make a big government point related to my Christmas single.
Uh at the end of that song, Santa Claus is come into town.
I sing, I think the longest note I've held uh since I was a boy chorister aged nine uh and the uh and the pre-scoo.
Yeah, let's just hear this note.
Let's hear this note.
Yeah, coming up.
Listen to this.
You'll be impressed by this note.
Now, now that's that's that's pretty damn and that's not like your yeah your hip hoppy type uh you know lady gagger types where it's all done with the old smoke and mirrors in the studio.
I had to do that live.
And I I got the uh I got uh like a little um piano demo of the arrangement beforehand, and I'm playing it in my car and singing along, and I do that last note, and I can't do it.
I can't get I can't do that last note for as long as I'm meant to do.
So so so what I do is I'm worried I'm not gonna be able to do it in the studio.
So what I do is I take off my seatbelt and then freed of my seatbelt, I can sing the note perfectly.
And I can only do that because I'm in New Hampshire, which is the and what I believe is now the last state in the Union where you don't have to wear a where you're free not to wear a seatbelt when you drive.
So only because I was I was in a land I was in a st if I'd been in Vermont, I wouldn't have been able to do the big note.
Been in Maine, wouldn't have been able to do the big note.
Been in Massachusetts, couldn't have done the big note.
But I was in New Hampshire.
I took off my seatbelt, I th hurled it through the window, and it was Christmas suddenly.
I s that's when I sang the big note, uh congratulated myself, careered across the media, got sliced in two by the logging truck, but I hit that big note.
And I could only do that because we don't have a seatbelt law in New Hampshire.
That's live free or die.
Even when you're making a holiday single, this stuff is relevant.
Uh so that's that's the that's the that's the virtue.
That's the virtue of small government.
There's no long notes.
The only long notes are when they're playing the death march for your society when you got the uh when you got the big uh when you got the big government.
I could only do that note 'cause I was in a free jurisdiction.
Uh let's go let's go to Max in uh Max in Sudbr Sudsbury, Massachusetts, where you can't sing the log notes in your car.
Max, you're uh live on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
G uh great to have you with us.
Yes, thanks.
Mark, uh, I don't understand something, and maybe you can explain.
Uh is as as I understand the Democrats needed sixty votes for cloture in the Senate to get the health care bill through.
But but I also read on the internet last night that the Republicans, I think Senator Dement, uh after he finally had a chance to read the bill, found that at page like one thousand one hundred and something, that th there's a provision or rule in the bill that a future Congress or a Senate I think will never be able or authorized in the future to bring up any future bill to repeal or amend I think the death panel provision w just to put a label,
I think like the death panel provision they can never uh amend.
But the pr the th the issue is beyond you know the con the unconstitutionality of having a bill that lasts forever that can never be changed.
Since that's a Senate rule that they can't be bring up the death panel thing in the future, wouldn't that and then that requires two-thirds vote sixty-seven rather than sixty.
Don't the Democrats now have to amend the bill to get rid of that rule or send it back to the uh the vote they need sixty-seven.
And why aren't the Republicans on to this?
In other words, the very bill needs sixty-seven, not sixty.
Yeah, what what they're what they're doing is ba as you say, there's there's something disgusting about this because effectively they're trying to bind all future legislatures for for all time, which is a an affront to any kind of uh any kind of democratic, accountable government.
That's something that uh predates uh the uh the the birth of uh the United States.
Uh go goes back to colonial times and to previous times that an existing parliament cannot bind future parliaments.
Uh and you're right that what they're trying to do effectively is to get this thing uh to to get this thing so insulated uh that certain provisions of it can never be uh can never be repealed ever.
And the Republicans ought to be on to that.
Jim Demind actually is uh on to some of this stuff, and we'll talk about that uh in uh just a moment.
1-800-282-2882.
We're talking health care and lots more on the pre-Christmas edition of the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Mark Stein in for Rush.
Great to be with you on the EIB network.
Stick around, lots more still to come.
Great to be uh with you at Christmas.
We'll have a best of rush for Christmas Eve, EIB approved Christmas music on Christmas Day, and then I'll be uh back here On Monday and Walter Williams and uh lots of other great fun live in the uh week ahead.
Let's go to Matthew in Houston, Texas.
Matthew, you're live on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Great to have you with us.
Yeah, it's become pretty obvious that um these uh bugs up in Congress are not listening to our emails or our phone calls.
And they didn't listen to us in our town hall, so I think the last best chance we have maybe would be to meet some of these uh people when they come back for their Christmas holiday and at the airport and to tell them what we think of their bills and uh especially you think this would be effective against some of the moderates, so called moderates.
Yeah, so so-called moderates is uh right.
Uh in in the uh Jennifer Rubin at Commentary Magazine made a great point the other day that when it comes to the last ditch, all uh Democrats are liberals, and that that there's no such thing as a blue dog uh Democrat.
When it comes to it, when it comes to the crunch, uh that they're they're not moderates.
But your theory is that these guys are gonna be flying home, landing, coming in for the Christmas break, and they ought to be met there by their constituents, carrying placards and uh peacefully telling them what it is uh that they've done wrong and that they've they've in fact betrayed uh their duties as uh accountable legislators.
Absolutely.
And I think too, with with the number of uh holiday uh people picking up their their friends or whatever at the airport, that it's gonna get joined by a lot of other people as well.
Yeah, the airports are certainly crowded these days, and if it's a choice between standing at the gate or waiting for your mother and waiting for your mother-in-law, or standing at the gate and waiting for the congressman who's just crippled your children's and grandchildren's future, uh then I think there's a lot to be said for actually going and uh and telling the congressman what you think of it.
You know, the moment they were rattled.
You're you're right to this to this degree, Matthew.
I think that the moment they got really rattled was when they discovered uh in the summer that they couldn't hold their so-called town hall meetings, this phony baloney term anyway.
But they couldn't hold them without holding them in a secure facility and doing background checks on any constituent who wanted to go along and say something.
And I think if they're gonna do I mean uh they've seen the numbers.
They've lost the argument in the arena.
If this were a battle uh uh simply a battle of public opinion, these guys have lost.
They haven't made the case.
Uh and uh and and if uh they and the fact that they cannot actually face constituents in the room and talk about this uh speaks very poorly for the legislative class.
But you know what it is what it is, Matthew?
I think they figured that.
I think they figured that out.
That they know they're gonna be unpopular, they know they're gonna be hated, but that it's gonna pass.
That it's gonna pass.
It'll be like all these things.
People get mad, but they can't keep it up.
People get outraged, but they can't keep it up, and so it eventually fades and uh and goes away.
But uh but you're that's not a bad idea.
Meeting your uh Democratic congressman uh at the airport, especially your blue dogs.
I mean, Ben Nelson seems to just Ben Nelson uh I think this was uh who was it?
I think it was Field Marshal Haig said of uh Lord Stanley in the first World War that he's like a feather cushion.
He bears the imprint of whoever sat on him last.
Ben Nelson bears the imprint of whoever sat on him last.
Harry Reid sat on him and he voted for this monstrosity.
Then the governor back in his home state in Nebraska sat on him and he suddenly started saying, Well, maybe I'll vote against it or whatever.
So maybe the best thing to do would be if his constituents met him at the airport and uh metaphorically sat on this pathetic feather cushion of a man uh and and persuaded him uh that uh he is supposed to represent the people of Nebraska, and no matter what squalid, contemptible deal uh that he gets for them by sticking his hand in the pockets of uh citizens in forty-nine other states, they don't want any part of it uh and he should rethink.
Uh that's uh that's just an affront.
I mean, why do we need a federal bill if we're gonna have uh uh state varied uh exceptions?
I mean, i the the the if it's if it's state-specific legislation, uh the state should be able to legislate it.
If you're gonna have federal legislation, it should apply to all states equally.
What this is now is what they call in uh Canada asymmetrical federalism, where the Quebecers negotiated a fantastic deal where whereby they get more seats in Parliament and they get more this and they get more that uh and they call it asymmetrical federalism.
The great thing about uh U.S. Federalism, which which is why it's so successful, is that it's supposed to treat every uh state the same from Maine to Hawaii.
Uh and if they do if it doesn't, then there's not really not a lot of point to it.
But now you're gonna be, you know, um uh the the uh the special uh the special Medicare program uh there's this the the the the new version of Medicare program not available in all states.
That's what they're gonna have to put on this thing now.
Program not available in all states.
That's that's uh the new kind of variable speed, very speed uh federalism uh we've got in this country now.
Let's go to Dustin.
Dustin, you're on the Rush Limbaugh show.
Thanks for waiting.
You're live on the air.
Hey, Merry Christmas.
And Merry Christmas to you too, Dustin.
Yeah, I said, you're you're in uh you're celebrating it in Virginia.
They still they've still got Christmas there, or is it uh is it uh as Al Gore says, it's one of these things that in your faith tradition they've called it something else now.
You still have Christmas in Virginia?
Absolutely, we definitely have Christmas, and it's pretty cold here.
Exactly.
Well, good good.
I'm glad.
Good yes, yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.
Good dusted, you're uh Dustin, what's your what's your point?
I've got a you know, you hear about all these things across the country, these special ballots about, you know, gay marriage and all these other things.
If it's really that important of an issue to both sides, why not have special ballots in these districts and then you know, have your constituents vote on it and you're supposed to represent your constituents.
If your constituents vote against it, you know, these polls you could say one poll says one thing, one poll says the other.
A vote is unanimous, you know, a vote is a vote.
Yeah.
Well, you're you're right.
It would be non-binding, but it would certainly be a sense of the electorate.
For for example, if uh you were to I don't know what system they have in Nebraska, but if you had a ballot initiative in Nebraska and the state of Nebraska over overwhelmingly rejected the whatever they're calling it, the corn husker kickback that this squalid man Nelson got.
Uh if if if his electors overwhelmingly rejected that, he would be a uh a discredited man.
He would be like these uh he would be like these uh fellas from uh from from toppled regimes who who may still maintain embassies in foreign capitals.
He could no longer be said in any authentic sense uh to still represent uh the people of Nebraska.
That's an that's an excellent idea.
You know, we we are we are you're right.
We are gonna have to translate some of the uh opinion poll into something uh a little firmer.
And actually having ballot initiatives in those jurisdictions that do permit them is a good way of rejecting uh a lot of this stuff.
Particularly if they reject uh specific kickbacks uh that their grubby and squalid uh senators have managed to to uh uh to to to get Harry Reid uh to uh to to put their way.
That's an excellent idea, Dustin.
Are you still there, Dustin?
Yeah, yeah.
No, just one thing to keep in your hip pocket for maybe this time next year.
These democratic senators who lose the vote because they obviously don't care about their constituents.
Which one of them end up as these special czars, these crazy little programs.
Oh no, I'm sure there's a lot of I'm sure there's a lot of that.
You look at all these huge agencies that are being created.
Uh you you th obviously uh at some point they've said, well, look, things aren't looking too good for November 2010, but we want to do this.
And we understand that it may cost us a Senate seat here and a Senate seat there.
Well then, what what incentives can we make to individual senators or congressmen to go along with it?
And I don't doubt that they'll be taken care of.
They always are.
We had a a Democratic uh congressman who voted for um uh in New Hampshire, who voted for uh Clinton's assault weapons ban and got tossed out of office immediately the following November.
And uh what was he called?
Dick Sweat.
Dick Sweat.
And Dick Sweat got made uh ambassador to Latvia, which is one of the Baltic states, and he's so interested in Baltic affairs that uh i in his announcements welcoming this appointment, he said he was delighted he'd be going to the Balkans.
Balkans, Baltics, what difference does it make?
So I'm sure there's a lot of that that's been uh that's been going on.
Uh what is happening here is uh is that uh Republicans are focused on the short term.
They're thinking, hey, this is great, we can pick up a couple of Senate seats in twenty ten, we can pick up a couple of House seats, and Democrats are thinking how can we install the basic architecture uh for a European sized big government state.
And if we just get it there in embryo, we're just doing the framing now.
Uh People won't really know what it is.
It's like when they build a a new uh development on the edge of town and you see and you see the timbers going up and you see them pouring the foundation, you don't really know what it is.
And we don't really know what this is, or that's what they're figuring at the moment, because it's going to be a while before they put the windows in and before they put the clabberds on and they put before they shingle the roof.
But what they're doing is they're establishing the basic structure uh for big government, for big government on the size of a a European social democracy.
And that's why they're prepared to lose.
If it if it costs uh uh this guy uh uh Byron Dorgan in uh North Dakota, and his numbers are terrible.
He's essentially a blue senator from a red state.
And in the latest numbers in North Dakota, he's got thirty-six percent against fifty-eight percent for his Republican opponent.
So they may lose Dorgan next November.
But what do they care?
What do they care if they get this thing through?
They're using their sixty seat moment and they're thinking for the long term.
And we're focused on some crummy midterm elections, thinking that getting a couple of extra senators is going to do anything about this.
Lots more straight ahead.
1 800 282 2882, Mark Stein on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Mark Stein, in for rush on the day before Christmas.
According to the news uh New York Times, thousands may incorrectly be using stimulus tax breaks.
I love that word.
Incorrectly be using stimulus tax breaks.
Could happen to could happen to anyone.
Thousands of American taxpayers incorrectly claimed more than five hundred million dollars in tax benefits under the Obama administration's tax break for first-time home buyers.
A government watchdog report said Tuesday.
Hey, great, why not?
Every bit if Ben Nelson's getting a piece of it, if John Kerry's getting a piece of it, you fill in the you fill in the paperwork and they're uh and they send you the check, why not take it?
Why not cash it?
Go for it.
That's what you get.
And that's what it that's the way it's gonna be when it whenever you expand government, uh the government there are never any economies of scale.
Uh you always lose far more money uh in fraud and incorrect, as the New York Times would say, incorrect payments, incorrect.
Uh why not why not go for it?
You'd have to be a f when they're giving money to everybody else, uh why not fill in the form and incorrectly receive stimulus benefit uh benefit money.
So that's uh that's just five hundred million.
It's a barely barely a rounding error in the multi-trillion dollar boondoggles that are going on right now.
Let's go to Scott in Dallas, Texas.
Scott, you're live on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Great to have you with us.
Mark, good afternoon.
Afternoon to good afternoon to you too.
General, just a little bit of math by you with regard to what the impact is going to be for the number of physicians and physician assistants and nurse practitioners that are going to be available to people after this monstrosity is passed.
There are roughly six hundred and sixty thousand practicing physicians in the United States, only twenty percent of whom, by the way, under the AMA.
Now, when this takes force, health care plans may require that patients see a nurse practitioner or physician assistant first.
Now, there are many, many great PAs and nurse practitioners out there.
There are probably three or four hundred thousand in the United States.
About half of the doctors practice primary care, about half of the nurse practitioners and PAs practice primary care, all under the direction or supervision of a physician.
But what happens if patients are suddenly required to see a PA or NP first?
What happens is that even though these people have a good level of expertise, there are things that because of the number of years that they've practiced or the amount and length of training that physicians have had that physicians, assistants, and nurse practitioners might not catch.
A mole on somebody's cheek that the doctor who's seen this patient for years might recognize and say, John, that thing looks like it changed color from a couple years ago.
Let's buy ops yet.
Yeah.
You're right, you're absolutely right there.
That's the that's the one that's the one thing that your entry level into the health system uh becomes much lower.
That's that's something that again uh people who live in the Euro Canadian systems will will tell you about.
That uh it you actually have to go through a couple of stages.
You no longer have your old-time family physician who's known you for years.
Uh you have to go through a couple of entry positions to get to be seen uh by the level of dog before that, as you say, with little things, little things like moles, which they claim to be concerned about, that's the reason they're taxing the tanning beds because they think there's a melanoma epidemic uh and that the reason for the ten percent tax on the tanning bed is to pay for all the extra melanoma.
But melanoma is a classic example of something that gets treated by, as you say, the doctor who knows you well enough to know when something's grown a little more, changed a little colour or whatever, and you're being seen by low-level care.
But that's actually uh in a more basic sense, it's also true that when you mandate and you bureaucratize health care, uh what you do is eventually you lead to a physician shortage in your own country because uh medicine no longer becomes an attractive middle class profession.
If you don't want to be hyper-regulated by the government in every way, you go into something else.
Medicine has ceased to be a middle class profession in a lot of these countries.
Uh and then again a lot of your doctors move to.
Now we don't know whether that will apply here.
For example, uh the highest concentration of Canadian doctors anywhere on the planet, of Canadian trained doctors anywhere on the planet, is the state of Florida.
Florida is full of Canadian doctors who would rather work under the discredited American medical system than under the benign utopian Canadian health care system.
Now, obviously, if the uh Florida system takes on the characteristics of the American system, uh, where are those Canadian doctors going to end up treated?
Maybe they'll stay here, maybe they'll go to Costa Rica, I don't know.
But you you notice that one thing all these socialized health care systems do is they denude the third world of doctors and nurses.
So people who could be if you're in Botswana and you train as a doctor, you go and work in a hospital in uh in Canada.
If you're a nurse in in uh Malawi, uh instead of working at a hospital in Malawi, you go and work in a a hospital in Britain.
And uh we so where do you we can we kid ourselves that it's uh it's progressive to take away all the most skilled people from third world countries and bring them to work here because nobody wants to work in the in the uh in it, we can never provide enough doctors and nurses for the medical system here.
But for you, if you're on the receiving end, what it means is that where you would previously have been seen by a doctor, you're now gonna be seen by a nurse practitioner uh or or some other level uh of uh of qualified aid, and you'll have to jump through several hoops before you uh eventually get to see the doctor.
Lots of lots of fun straight ahead.
Boy, you guys really are just at the beginning of this learning curve.
And for those of us, if you're you know, the incontinent Quebec who's been waiting three years for the little twenty-minute procedure that will stop him having to go to the bathroom twelve times a night, he's way ahead of you.
He's been sitting with his legs crossed for three years, he knows what it's like.
You guys, you're just starting to cross your legs, and you're about to, and you're really about to to discover uh what it's what it's what's ahead for you.
Mark Steid, In for Rush on the pre-Christmas Eve show uh on the EIB network, more straight ahead.
Five hundred million dollars for John Kerry, uh five hundred million dollars for incorrect uh s allocation of stimulus funds.
There's money for everything except it seems uh for rehousing these prisoners who are going to be moving from Guantanamo Bay to rural Illinois.
The I love this word.
The Obama administration is struggling to come up with the money.
I've never seen that phrase before.
It's never been written in human history.
Quote, the Obama administration is struggling to come up with the money, unquote.
It's in today's New York Times.
I i are they struggling to come up with the money for stimulus too or for the health care of the cap and trade?
No, no, it's only for rehousing uh these Gitmo detainees in Illinois.
You know, why don't you why don't you save money?
Uh just my suggestion to the President, why don't you just save money by, say, rehousing the Gitmo detainees in closed tanning salons in rural Illinois?
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