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March 18, 2010 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:41
March 18, 2010, Thursday, Hour #3
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Time Text
And greetings to you, music lovers, thrill seekers, conversationalists all across the fruited plane.
I'm Rushlin Bush, serving humanity.
With half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair.
Okay, got a couple of names here for you to target on the phones.
Ladies and gentlemen, one's in Ohio and one is in Louisiana.
But I tell you, we we just heard from Paul Ryan, who said that a busload of seasoned citizens just arrived in uh in the Capitol from Florida and they they offloaded there and they ran down the halls and they started pummeling people verbally.
They ran into about they don't want any part of this.
And you know, seasoned citizens all over the country are very up in arms.
I'm gonna tell you why.
Very simple reason why they're up in arms.
They are watching.
We're talking Medicare here.
No, don't think for a moment they don't hear the words Medicare cuts.
Don't think for a moment they don't hear those words.
They do hear those words.
They are watching a system that they think that they have paid into for 30, 40 or more years, and they are seeing it being changed right before their eyes.
These people who think they've paid for all of this, they're gonna have their benefits, their services reduced, benefits cut, so that people who have never paid one damn dime can get the same coverage, such as illegal citizens or illegal immigrants.
This is literally a matter of life and death for them.
Medicare is life and death to these people.
They believe that they've paid into it.
Well, and to a certain extent they have paid a portion of it.
But now they're watching all this is going to be extended to 30 million uninsured, and then they hear Medicare is going to be cut to insure all these other people.
Let it say they are up in arms over this out there.
That's why busloads of them are showing up in Washington without anybody asking them to.
Now here are couple of names.
For those of you in Ohio and those of you in Louisiana from the Columbus Dispatch blog, Representative Charlie Wilson is one of a number of Democrats who's officially undecided about the final health care bill, but the St. Clairsville, Ohio Democrat is giving off strong signals that he's headed toward a yes vote.
Uh Wilson is this dated today.
Let's see.
Don't uh 2010.
I don't have the date.
It says that Wilson scheduled a participate in a uh conference call with pro-life religious leaders to say that these leaders are encouraged that this historic piece of legislation upholds restrictions on federal funding of abortion.
You know what?
You religious people, you have got to drop this single issue stuff on this.
There because abortions are going to be paid for.
Planned Parenthood, the Gutmocker Institute.
Don't make me go get the story.
I've got it here.
The Gutmacher Institute is an arm of Planned Parenthood.
It's their think tank.
And they're they're giddy.
What's I'm gonna have to get the number.
Damn it.
Uh I won't get the number.
I don't want to be wrong about this.
Uh just can't find it.
Um But they're out there giddy because of all the new abortions that there are going to be.
Because of this bill, federally funded abortions are going to happen.
Remember, this is just the starter house.
So you people who live near Charlie Wilson's districts in St. Clair, Ohio need to call him and say that whatever he's being told about abortion funding is wrong, that at some point everybody is going to be paying for taxpayer-funded abortions in here because Planned Parenthood wants it, and you need to ask Mr. Wilson, how come Planned Parenthood's not objecting to this?
How come Nayrol is not objecting?
How come the feminists are not enraged over what is in this bill?
If this bill were actually going to cut funding for abortion, we wouldn't hear the end of it.
But we're not hearing a peep out of them because they know what's really in this.
Now I'm gonna find that story.
Uh uh uh My memory says they they they're looking forward to 30 million more abortions or a 30% increase in more abortions.
I don't remember what it is, but I'll find it.
So there's one, Charlie Wilson from St. Clairsville, Ohio, a Democrat leaning yes, because he's uh been reassured that pro-life religious leaders are encouraged that this historic piece of legislation upholds restrictions on why he needs to call Bart Stupak to boot.
Now the next one.
Joseph Co., and I'm still confused as to how.
Well, it's not, it's not cow.
Every time Gow with a G. Okay.
Health care overhaul to get fresh look from Representative Joseph Gao at request of President Obama.
Now, this is in the uh the uh New Orleans uh uh metal block on the name of the paper, it's their website.
Uh President Obama on Wednesday begged Representative Joseph Gao, Republican New Orleans, to take a fresh look at the language on abortion in the Senate health care bill to see whether he could, in good conscience, support landmark health care legislation now days away from a final vote.
Uh Gow said uh he's asked if I would restudy the Senate language and that I would approach it with an open mind, and I promised him I would go back and study the Senate language again, Gao said after meeting with Obama in the oval orifice for ten minutes yesterday.
It's a New Orleans Times pick aune, if their blog.
So Charlie Wilson, St. Clairsville Democrat, that's in Ohio, and Joseph Gow is being asked to look at the Senate bill again.
Gao didn't even get Air Force One.
Mary Landrew.
Mary Landry got all the goodies for the Louisiana Purchase.
Gao didn't get anything.
He voted, he voted yes, and he has said he's gonna vote no.
And now Obama's putting pressure on him.
White House chief of staff, Rom Emanuel, whose powers of persuasion are famously expressed less delicately, was also in the Oval Office during the brief meeting.
Joseph Gow said, no, they didn't whip me on the vote.
Whip with an H. So there are two people to focus on if you're making phone calls in Washington.
Again, the numbers are 87762-8762 or 202-224-31-21.
I mentioned this earlier, Fred Barnes.
And this is pretty sure it's the weekly standard.
This is his uh magazine.
Yes, the health care wars are only beginning.
The president's health plan will not solve a problem.
It'll be the start of bitter fights over funding and policy that will consume the nation for decades.
He starts his piece this way.
On December 7th, 1941, an announcement was made during the football game between the hometown Redskins and the Philadelphia Eagles.
All the generals and admirals at Griffith Stadium were instructed to report to their duty stations.
Little did they know their lives would be changed forever, and America would be at war or on war footing for the next 50 years.
Pearl Harbor had been attacked.
Well, America will be in a constant health care war if Obamacare is enacted.
Passage wouldn't end the health care debate.
Rather, it would perpetuate Obamacare as the dominant issue for decades to come.
Reshape politics, create an annual funding crisis in Congress, and generate a spate of angry lawsuits, and yet few in Washington seem aware of what lies ahead.
We only have to look at Great Britain to get a glimpse of the future.
The National Health Service, Socialized Medicine, was created in 1946, touted as the envy of the world.
It's been a contentious issue ever since.
Its cost and coverage are perennial subjects of debate.
The press, especially the Daily Mail, feasts on reports of long waiting periods, dirty hospitals, botched care, and denied access to treatments.
A conservative member of the European Parliament, Daniel Hannon, last year in an interview on Fox News, denounced the National Health Service as a 60-year mistake, declaring he wouldn't wish it on anybody.
As Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher bravely cut NHS spending in the 1980s, but current Tory, i.e., conservative leaders, regard criticism of the NHS As too risky.
The Conservative Party stands four square behind the NHS, says its leader David Cameron in response to Mr. Hannon.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi believes Obamacare would have a more congenial fate that it will become as popular as Social Security and Medicare.
But she's kidding herself.
Social Security and Medicare were popular from the start and passed with bipartisan support.
Obamacare is unpopular and partisan.
It is extremely controversial.
Its passage is far more likely to spark a political explosion than a wave of acceptance.
Democrat leaders believe the public doesn't focus on the process of how legislation is enacted, but in this case they are wrong.
Fred Barnes writes, I have been amazed at how many people understand reconciliation.
Process that allows budget and spending bills to pass in the Senate with only 51 votes instead of 60.
I am not all that surprised.
frankly that people understand this.
It's a testament to the American people and their outrage over today.
They know the substance of this as well as they know the process, and they don't like either.
Now, assuming it passes, Obamacare wouldn't go into effect fully until 2013.
This fact alone would make the health care plan a paramount issue in the 2012 presidential race, whether Obama's on the ballot or not.
As long as he's president, Obama would surely veto legislation to repeal or gut Obamacare.
With a Republican in the White House, things would be different.
Republicans might be successful in dismantling the program, but Democrats wouldn't give up.
Having gone to great lengths to enact it, they'd go all out to protect it or revive it.
Pelosi's already talking about expanding Obamacare.
She favors adding a public option to compete with private insurers, essentially to wipe them out.
Once we kick through this door and pass it, there'll be more legislation to follow, she told liberal bloggers.
All of this, all of this would increase the use of health care services.
The tendency is to underestimate just how large this increase might be.
This was true with Medicaid and Medicare, whose costs have ballooned far beyond initial projections.
The annual struggles in Congress over funding for Obamacare would be intense, and the courts would be involved.
In anticipation of passage, three states, Virginia, Idaho, Utah, have passed laws to nullify Obamacare's mandate that everybody purchase health insurance.
Other states expected to follow suit.
Arizona voters will decide the matter in a referendum in November.
Ultimately, federal judges would decide if these state laws are constitutional.
Other issues would also end up in court.
And that includes the constitutionality of the process that Democrats use to pass Obamacare.
We could we could look forward to years and years and years of litigation.
Enacting Obamacare would be only the beginning.
The controversy surrounding its passage and how it might work would preoccupy the president, Congress, and millions of average Americans for the foreseeable future, and then some, and by the way, if I might add, this is right up Obama's alley.
All of this chaos is exactly made to order for somebody attempting to take over the private sector of this country and make it all come under the umbrella of the federal government.
Be right back.
And we are back.
I found this Gutmacher Institute that's Planned Parenthood's research arm, and they're on record as saying that if abortion is federally funded, that they expect a 30% increase in the number of abortions.
If it's federally, why not?
Why not?
You make that free.
Uh plus, you have so many Democrats out there advocating for abortion after abortion after abortion to take place.
Tom Colburn, you got to listen to this, this afternoon at a press conference, threatening the Democrats playing hardball.
I want to send a couple of messages to my colleagues in the House.
If you voted no and you vote yes, and you lose your election, and you think any nomination to a federal position isn't going to be held in the Senate, I've got news for you.
It's going to be held.
If you get a deal for you or your district, I've already instructed my staff and the staff of seven other senators that we will look at every appropriations bill at every level at every instance, and we will outline it by district and we will associate that with the buying of your vote.
So if you think you can cut a deal now and it not come out till after the election, I want to tell you that isn't going to happen.
And be prepared to defend selling your vote in the House.
Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma throwing down a gauntlet saying, and when he says, by the way, your nomination will be held, meaning we're going to stop it.
If you're going to get a plum federal job for selling your vote to Barack Obama or Pelosi, you ain't gonna get the job.
We're gonna hold it.
And we're gonna tell everybody what you got.
Because every nomination has to go through us in the Senate.
We're gonna tell everybody what you got before the election.
So you better be prepared to defend selling your vote in the House.
This is Tom Colburn, Senator from Oklahoma, and he is a doctor.
And now back to the phones.
This is Vicky in the Washington, D.C. area.
Great to have you on the program, and I thank you for waiting.
Thank you, Rush.
It's an honor to talk to you.
Thanks very much.
You know, I am God, I've been listening to you for oh God, almost two hours now, and so many things you said I want to comment on, but my initial reason for calling was about the um Brett Bear interview last night and my outrage with the uh Obama's talk about the constitutional process being ugly and tedious and not something that really America wants to focus on, that they're more interested in the outcome.
And I just I find that as a total dumbing down of our society.
No, well, it is that, but what you're also hearing is somebody say, I don't care.
The ends justify the means.
Exactly.
And right, it's his attempt to just to tell the public don't pay attention to the process.
What comes out is the important thing in the long run.
And it, you know, this country was founded because we didn't want government intervention in our life.
And the fact that I just I'm so frustrated with it.
And you know, I'm a I'm a stay-at-home mom who is also running a small business.
Um my husband works full-time and with two jobs starting this business, so he worked full-time to maintain our health insurance, and he worked full-time to start the business that he hopes someday will be you know our business long term.
And uh, you know, we have never taken public money.
We don't ever plan on taking public money.
We've actually had in the past years ago, my husband worked for the electrical union and was injured, and he was um was not able to work for many, many months, and his insurance carried through for quite a few months, but he lost it and then got food poisoning and was hospitalized for four days over a long weekend.
And uh, we ended up having to put that bill totally ourselves because our in he had no insurance.
We weren't married at the time, but he had no insurance, and the hospital charged us six thousand dollars for him just to room and board and we fought them, we asked them to cut the price down, um, you know, to be a reasonable, you know, reasonable and customary charges of what they would reimburse an insurance company and they would not.
But we never complained when they said no, instead of ruining our credit, we took out a loan and we paid the hospital off.
We believe that there is a need for reform, but not at the government's hands.
Yeah, exactly right, because that six thousand is gonna become twelve.
Uh they can't run anything efficiently.
Uh it's and you may not even have the ability to pay for it or the the the right, uh legal right to pay for it yourself if they follow this through.
I understand your frustration.
Uh Obama doesn't care about the process.
Uh whatever it takes.
And Pelosi said the same thing.
They don't care.
I mean, this is y here's tyranny.
It's right in front of your phone.
This is tyranny.
It's what it looks like.
We've always looked at it from afar.
We've looked at it in other countries.
Yeah, we see it.
Right in our own nation's capital, Shelley in Pittsburgh.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Oh, thank you, Rush.
It's so great to talk to you.
Thank you.
I wanted to tell you that I live in Jason Altmeyer's district, and we've been really hammering him with our opposition to this health care bill.
He was interviewed yesterday morning on our local radio station Quinn and Rose.
Two things he said really, I think everybody needs to know.
He said he doesn't believe that the Senate bill will lead to single payer health care.
And he also said when the radio host asked him, Well, don't you think in the future it could?
And he told the radio host, well, I can't think about what's going to happen 30 years from now.
I can only think about what's in this bill right now.
That's what we're up against.
He I believe he really wants to vote yes for this bill, and I think that we are really making it hard for him not to vote yes for this bill.
Polls were done in our district that says only twenty-six percent of the people polled in his district want this bill passed as is.
I want to I want to give him the benefit of the doubt on something here.
When he says to you, as he looks at the Senate bill, he doesn't see it leading the single payer.
Let's give him the benefit of the doubt on that.
I uh Russ, according to my research, even the Congressional Budget Office said on December 7th, 2009.
Up to 10 million people will lose coverage by their employers because the penalty is cheaper than covering.
I know I'll be able to do that.
No, no, no, I wasn't finished.
Oh, I'm sorry.
I want to give him the benefit of it.
I don't know.
When I say give him the benefit of the doubt, let's assume he's not that stupid, is what I mean.
Let's assume Jason Altmeyer's not let's assume he really believes that the Senate bill doesn't lead to single payer.
Has he not heard what his own speaker has said that this is the first step?
Does he not wonder what Dennis Kucinich?
You think Dennis Kucinich didn't get some promise that it's gonna go single payer some point down the line?
Yeah.
This Altmire guy needs to have the truth pounded into him, and not from, you know, you you don't go please please don't don't vote yes.
Mr. Altmeyer, you're wrong.
Congressman, you're wrong.
The whole purpose of this is single payer.
That's why they care about the whole purpose.
That's all Obama wants.
That's all Pelosi wants, and they're willing to get if it takes them ten years.
If it takes them five years.
And not only that, but the arrogance of the statement that, well, I can't think about what's going to happen 30 years from now.
I have to think about what's going to happen 30 years from now, and so does every person in his district.
He'll get his health care benefits and every all of his federal pension, and he'll be able to draw the ways to answer.
Well, I'd I'd keep pounding him.
I you you you've you've your responsibility is to think about the long-term implications of what you're about to do here, Congressman.
It's that simple.
Somebody at the uh Gibbs press briefing this afternoon in the Rose Garden asked him a question involving me.
We have the soundbite coming up in just a moment.
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Press conference, White House briefing, reporter unidentified, had this exchange with Gibbs earlier this week.
Both Rush Lemon and uh Michael Moore pointed out that the um pre-existing condition provision of the legislation doesn't take effect uh for another four years.
And I'm wondering if you could tell us um was that a concession?
And if so, who fought for that?
And what did you get in return?
There are certain things that that cannot be instituted until you have everyone in the system.
Obviously, this is a piece of legislation that phases in over the course of many years those changes.
And as a result of that phasing in when that's done, uh pre-existing conditions for adults will be outlawed.
But understand this when this becomes law.
An insurance company will no longer be able to discriminate against a child that has that they believe uh or says that has a pre existing condition.
Where to start?
Um that's total lie about why the benefits don't start for four years.
The reason the benefits don't start for four years, so I get this fraudulent CBO number under a trillion dollars.
Remember, uh the the number really is nine hundred trillion because that's what Obama said was wasted on the Iraq war.
And if we just get out of Iraq, we can save that money and buy health care with it, use the health care reform.
So the reason why the tax increases start immediately and all of the coverage doesn't begin for four years is simply to get a ten-year cost under a trillion dollars.
It's not because it takes that long to get people in the system.
They're going to do everything they can to wipe out the private insurance industry right off the bat.
He just said so.
As a result of that phasing in, pre-existing conditions for adults will be outlawed.
When this becomes law, an insurance company will no longer be able to discriminate against a child that they believe or says has a pre-exist.
In other words, have to ensure everybody, which is no longer insurance.
This is smoking mirrors.
We all know what's in this bill.
What's in this bill is the fact that you either have to buy insurance or you pay a fine.
And the fine is much less than having insurance.
Also in the bill is that if you have an accident or have a heart attack, you can buy insurance that day.
That's not insurance.
No insurance company can stay in business doing that, especially competing with a so-called public option with a government in the business as well.
So it's a it's more literal lies coming out of the White House, this time from Baghdad Robert Gibbs, Doug in Mount Laurel, New Jersey.
Hi, welcome to the EIB network.
Uh hi, Rush.
You and I go back a long ways.
I've been a listener since uh right after the first Gulf War.
Well, thank you, sir.
Yes, sir, you're welcome.
Just wanted to tell you that what you're doing with giving out the Capitol Hill phone numbers is definitely working.
I called yesterday and today, and both times it took me a bare minimum of twenty minutes just to get a hold of the switchboard operator.
And yesterday I called uh my congressman John Adler's office.
Uh we're about twenty minutes or so from Philadelphia here in Mount Laurel.
And uh some sounded like a young lady answered the phone, and of course she gave me the song and dance about an undecided he was undecided on the vote, and but he did vote no the first time and all this stuff.
And I came back at her and she got as uh frazzled as Obama did yesterday when I questioned her about why is it taking him fourteen months to decide.
And she her comeback was, well, he wants to make an informed decision.
Well, you and I both know that's a bunch of garbage.
He already knows he's gonna vote yes.
And I called Pelosi, tried to call Pelosi's office today, and again, the same thing.
It took me forever just to get the operator.
And then when she tried to connect me to Pelosi's office, the lines were jammed.
Yeah.
So this thing is working.
And to reiterate what you said earlier in the program about Obama going for this uh single payer system.
I personally have seen the videotape several times where he very very clearly stated to some union people, and I'll quote him I am a proponent of the single payer system.
And you know, so he is a flat-out liar, and I'll call him that to his face.
He's a liar.
Of course.
We've played, we have played that soundbite and others.
We've played Barney Frank saying single payer is where we're headed.
That's what Jason Altmeyer in Pennsylvania.
I don't want to irritate the guy, but uh it is, folks, it's entirely possible.
I know this is hard to believe, but it's entirely possible that you know much more about what's in this than your member of Congress.
Oh, it's uh Brett Bair knows more about what's in it than Obama does.
That was obvious from the interview last night on Fox.
It's obvious Jason Altmeyer does not know what's in this.
He does not know that we're headed for taxpayer-funded abortions.
He does not know we're headed for single payer unless he's lying to his constituents when they call.
But I can I I can easily accept the notion that constituents know more than their members of Congress about this.
We generally think of them as the experts.
We think of them access to more information than we have.
That's not true anymore.
Plus, we're not browbeaten by leadership like they are.
We're not bribed, we're not bought off, and we're not given talking points.
You know, we we just deal straight up front with the truth and the facts, and these guys are into obfuscation.
But it really is it it's stretches credulity for Congress and Altmire to say that he doesn't see a route to single payer in the Senate bill when all he has to do is listen to Barney Frank and his own party, listen his own speaker of the House talk about it, or his own president talk about it.
I mean, it's not all that complicated.
It is what it is.
Now, this just happened in this segment, so I haven't had a chance to look at it.
But looks like they posted the reconciliation bill now.
The reconciliation bill and the slaughter uh uh it's on the Louis Slaughter's Committee on Rules has posted the reconciliation bill.
I haven't had a chance to look at it, uh, but it's there.
And uh I'm we've got people pouring through it now.
This is the fixes.
This is the amendments, this is the uh the slaughter solution, what's in it, ostensibly to make it easier for House members to pass this while they deem to be voting on the Senate bill at the same time.
Quick timeout, a quick break, we'll come back and continue in moments right after this.
Welcome back.
It's Rush Limboy and the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
I've been getting emails all day long from a whole bunch of people.
Michelle Bachmann, the firebrand congresswoman from Minnesota, is trying to round up another uh massive human protest on Saturday in Washington.
And we know that busloads of seasoned citizens are arriving in the nation's capital from Florida.
And uh this is like the third or fourth time that they have uh that they've done this.
There was just one uh earlier this week.
Um, and they continue to say that the phone calls and so forth are good, and but but the bodies on the ground uh roaming the halls and getting in members' faces uh is the last ditch effort.
And they've asked me to tell everybody that they're doing this on Saturday.
The vote now that's been posted uh and the they're on a 72-hour countdown now for a for a vote on Sunday.
However, there's a monkey wrench that's been thrown into this from roll call.
Senate budget chairman Kent Conrad said today that it's unlikely the Senate will be able to pass a health care reconciliation bill unchanged from what the House passes.
Conrad said the Senate parliamentarian has declined to make rulings on several issues in the bill that Republicans are likely to challenge under the Bird Rule.
That rule states, among other things, that every provision of a budget reconciliation bill must have a budget impact and cannot be extraneous.
He said, although we've spent many, many hours with the parliamentarians, some things he has not yet rendered a conclusion.
He wants to hear from both sides before he does.
Um so Conrad's predicting that Senate changes.
Wait a minute, the headline's wrong.
It is unlikely the Senate will be able to pass a health care reconciliation bill unchanged from what the House passes.
You know, I think this is all academic.
I don't think this reconciliation thing is ever going to end up at the Senate.
Certainly not by Senate.
What they want is the deemed the Senate bill to be deemed passed, sent to Obama, he signs it, and they forget it.
And here, grab audio soundbite number 20.
This is why.
I I've called this one.
All the this reconciliation, it's all of this is another sham.
It's another fraud, it's not, it's not going to go back over to the Senate.
Here's Charlie Cook yesterday on MSNBC, Angria Mitchell says, what strategy should the Democrats use to try to prevent the Republicans from taking over the Congress?
Whatever you're going to do on health care, get it out of the way as soon as possible, get back to a focus on economy and jobs.
There's a limit to probably what government can actually do to affect the trajectory of the economy, but they have to be seen as focused on the economy like a laser beam, in the words of Bill Clinton in 1992.
And that's why it's not going back to the Senate.
If if they if they deem the Senate bill passed and vote on this reconciliation thing, and in their words, voting on two bills at once, and who says they can't do that, then the Senate bill's passed, folks, in their world, and it goes to Obama, he signs it, and that's the end of it.
You're not going to hear one more word about health care for the rest of the year.
Focus on jobs.
So Conrad can say, well, I don't think this can work.
Even better.
Even better for Pelosi.
She doesn't have to mess with the Senate on it.
So the Senate's going to have to sit there and accept if I'm reading this right.
Journalists can't write anymore.
I really don't know what what Conrad's saying here is he's saying that this can't happen?
Try it one more time.
It is unlikely the Senate will be able to pass, they're never going to have a chance to, a health care reconciliation bill unchanged from what the House passes.
Meaning, well, we they're going to want to amend it.
And then it has to go back to the House, but they're never going to see it.
It's never going to get sent there, is the point.
Never going to get sent there.
Anyway, so they are working on this big rally again on Saturday.
Had one in in uh in December, right prior to the Senate voting on their health care bill.
Uh they had one earlier this week, and they're trying to round up uh another one, with uh just tons and tons of boatloads and busloads of people showing up to in person express their opposition and displeasure to this.
Did you see, and I you know, I look at the National Health Service to see what's coming our way.
I look at Walgreens in Washington State to see what's coming our way.
Look at Greece.
The National Health Service is a story out today.
52% of uh of people, what is it, HR 50?
Yeah, yeah.
52% of people walking into the clinics shouldn't be there.
It's not what the National Health Service was designed for.
Running off, they're going in for a common cold, they're going in there for common cold.
And that's going to happen here.
People are going to walk in once they think somebody's paid for government's paying for it.
Oh, yeah.
The slightest little in fact that happens too much as it is now.
That happens too much as it is now.
We heard a soundbite from Nancy Pelosi today.
She's so hoarse, she's probably got a cold.
Zycam is the answer to all this.
If you just, the moment you think you're getting a cold, get the oral spray.
That's my favorite.
Spray it in your mouth four times every three hours.
Just this week, I got a note from somebody, went to bed thinking, oh my God, the worst, I'm gonna wake up with the worst stuffed nose and fever and cold and so forth.
You the Zycam uh woke up at three in the morning to take the second dose, got up at uh after ten hours' sleep, gone.
Well, not gone, but I mean it was just it was it was the cold had been retarded.
Its onset had been slowed down.
Zycam works every time it's tried, but you have to use it at the right time, the moment you think you're coming down on something.
All right, the House has just defeated the Republican measure to block the slaughter rule.
The vote was 222 to 203.
No surprise there.
No surprise.
But they did try to stop it.
Here's uh Patricia in Norfolk, Virginia.
Welcome to the program.
I have a minute and a half, but I wanted to get to you.
Okay, real quick, Rush, thank you so much.
I'm a rush baby growing up, and I appreciate what you do for our nation.
Um, this is why I'm calling, is I want to let people know.
Number one, two years ago I had ovarian cancer, and if I hadn't been treated as promptly as I had, I wouldn't be alive today.
So this health care fight, this is personal.
I think if Obama and the Democrats pass this health care bill, um, this is gonna affect my children or my children's children, and I'm not willing to let that happen.
Number two, my husband is a health care worker.
He's an occupational therapy assistant that works for uh medium-sized health care organizations that provides um health care to people who receive Medicare and Medicaid.
We just got a memo this past week that says legislative sessions have seen significant reductions in both the Medicare and Medicaid daily rates we are paid.
Therefore we are cutting back on your benefits.
So thank you very much, President Obama and the Democrats.
My husband's losing a paid holiday, they're limiting bonuses, and pretty soon we're gonna be looking at whether or not we have nationalized health care and we're gonna be looking at health care increases.
And this is before Obamacare is even the law of the land.
It is going to be even worse.
That's the that's that's the point of the Walgreens story.
Walgreens, April 16th, in the state of Washington, and this is just the beginning, accepting no new Medicaid patients because they can't make money filling the prescriptions.
The government reimbursement on the prescriptions being filled is not enough to cover it.
So no new Medicaid patients.
That's it.
All this by design, by the way.
That's just a forerunner, and uh we we could spend all day here with with with uh eyewitness accounts of how the health care system managed as it is by the government now is falling apart.
But we don't have time.
We have to go to a break.
Be right back.
The phone number is the Capitol switchboard 87762 8762 or 202-224-3121.
I just had uh somebody quick scan the uh the bill, the reconciliation bill that's posted.
And uh this is the first thing to report is that tax, the word tax or some variation of it, shows up 124 times in 159 pages.
So there you have it.
And we gotta go.
But we'll be back tomorrow.
Open line Friday.
Just a mere 21-hour break.
We'll be back refreshed.
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