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April 4, 2013 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:16
April 4, 2013, Thursday, Hour #2
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Okay, folks, this is classic.
It is it is classic.
If you haven't heard this, it is in the Washington Post.
And the uh the lead of the story is cancer clinics are turning away thousands of Medicare patients.
Blame the sequester.
Oh yeah, yeah.
Don't you see it's the sequester?
And that means it's the Republicans.
The Republicans are the reason Medicaid patients, Medicare patients are being refused cancer treatment.
Oh yeah.
It's not Obamacare, of course not.
It's not the fact that what Medicare was cut by what?
$500 billion?
$114.
Medicare was cut $714 billion in Obamacare.
But it's the sequester.
See, see, folks, it's not Obamacare.
You cancer patients are being turned away from treatment because of the sequester because of the Republicans.
So the way this works is Obama can cut $700 billion out of Medicare.
That doesn't hurt a thing.
That hasn't caused anything.
Certainly nothing bad.
But the sequester, which does not touch Medicare.
The sequester does not touch Medicare is now causing doctors to start turning away cancer patients.
From the Washington Post article, cancer clinics across the fruited plain have begun turning away thousands of Medicare patients, blaming the sequester budget cuts.
Oncologists say the reduced funding, which took effect for Medicare on April 1st makes it impossible to administer expensive chemotherapy drugs while staying afloat financially.
It's just not true.
It just isn't true.
But it doesn't matter.
That's the Washington Post.
That's a guideline for the rest of the media throughout the day.
So guess what?
If it hasn't happened already, it will happen.
Panels will be assembled on cable networks to discuss not if, but why.
The Republicans wanted to make sure that cancer treatment was refused to Medicare patients.
Why did the Republicans want so much budget cutting that they would refuse treatment for cancer patients?
And then you'll have your guests and the uh round table discussion on why this would happen, and of course you'll get all the right answers.
Well, the Republicans weren't thinking, or they didn't care, or they didn't know, or they're trying to embarrass Obama or what have and an entirely false premise will be given life and the false premise will have children, so to speak, and that'll grow.
And before it's all said and done, the sequester, which is an entirely Republican idea, which it isn't, it's Obama's idea, is leading to people dying.
Meanwhile, it's Obamacare that cuts $700 billion from Medicare.
I saw the uh the story where Obama in a show of solidarity with federal employees is gonna take a 5% salary cut.
The sequester.
If he really, if he wanted to be accurate, he would ask for a 5% salary increase because the sequester is not cutting any spending.
The sequester is cutting the rate of growth.
There's new spending.
The sequester is not reducing spending from the baseline.
The sequester is reducing spending to less than what was projected to be spent, but still more than last year.
Even with the sequester, we will spend 20 to 30 billion dollars more than without it.
Doesn't matter.
But there are no cuts.
Zip, zero nut up.
So there's that story, and just keep a sharp eye.
Washington Post says legislators meant to partially shield Medicare from the automatic budget cuts triggered by the sequester, limiting the program to a 2% reduction, a fraction of the cuts seen by other federal programs.
But oncologists say the cut is unexpectedly damaging for cancer patients because of the way those treatments are covered.
And even those cuts are not real, as the AP says legislators exempted Medicare and Medicaid from the sequester.
There aren't any cuts in Medicare.
All of this is manufactured and made up.
But the idea here is to you've got what really in this year twenty-five billion dollars in sequester spending that's being reduced, and not budget cuts, it's spending being reduced.
Spending from a projected amount, not again, reduced spending from a baseline.
The whole idea is Republicans have to be blamed for this.
And it's Republicans causing cancer patients to die.
Now, what would you do?
If you're Republican, Republican voter, donor, fundraiser, what would you do to counter this kind of thing?
What would you do to get these people who are knowingly purposely lying about?
What would you do?
Seriously.
Because everybody says, hey, Republicans, what do they do?
Sit around and just say, well, what would you do here?
It takes me to a story, a column, actually, by a good friend of mine, Andy McCarthy, posted at the corner today.
You remember, I proffered the theorem last week that the gay marriage issue was lost the moment we surrendered the language, the moment we allowed modifiers to marriage.
Opposite sex marriage, heterosexual marriage, gay marriage.
What would once we allowed that, then for all intents and purposes, we lost the issue because marriage is none of those things.
Marriage is one thing.
Look it up.
Marriage means one thing.
But by not holding steadfast to that and allowing the language to change dramatically, we lost the issue.
And Andy's building on that theorem in this story.
It's my, or call up, my friends, he writes here, my friends at the American Freedom Law Center, where he's on the board, the advisory board, and, Have filed an amicus brief at the Supreme Court urging the justices to reverse a Colorado State Court ruling that gets this.
Get this now.
Urging the state or the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a Colorado State Court ruling that bans public display of gruesome abortion images on the remarkable ground that pictures of children who have been aborted might offend children.
They're not children.
That's exactly right.
They are not, if they've been aborted, they're not children.
They're nothings.
They're unviable tissue masses.
If they're unwanted, they are not children, no matter what the pictures say.
If they're unwanted, that's not a heart that's beating.
That's a Bible thumper that didn't make it.
So what's happening here?
The American Freedom Law Center has filed an amicus brief of the U.S. Supreme Court urging the justices on the Supreme Court to reverse a Colorado State Court ruling that bans public display of gruesome.
There's some people that want to illustrate what abortion is by posting pictures of it.
Colorado court banned the pictures because it's too offensive and it's scary for kids.
And the amicus is asking the Supreme Court to overturn in advance.
And let them post the pictures.
Let people find out what's really going on here.
Imagine writes, Mr. McCarthy, imagine if we had told the anti-war left that photos of the abuse at Abu Grabe prison could not be publicly displayed.
You know, we'll just describe the whole thing as enhanced attention or maybe choice.
No need to get more graphic than that.
How long do you suppose that would have been tolerated?
They wanted the pictures that Abu Grabe d uh displayed, and why?
Well, because they were trying to humiliate Bush.
They were trying to engineer a defeat in the war on terror for the United States, and they figured if they get those pictures published, that would make it even harder for Bush because of the mistreatment of prisoners.
Everybody knows the power of optics.
So Andy's point is imagine telling the left you can't post pictures of Abu Ghraib.
They'd have gone bat nuts.
In this instance, pro-abortion activists file a lawsuit against anti-abortion protesters, claiming that the display of graphic images of first-term abortions amounted to an actionable nuisance.
The Colorado courts agreed, as the American Freedom Law Center Amicus Brief explains, this flies in the face of First Amendment precedent holding that the Constitution does not permit the suppression of legitimate political expression solely to protect the young from ideas or images that the government thinks unsuitable for them.
Meaning you don't the First Amendment exists and you cannot defy it.
You cannot ban pictures like this on the grounds that you don't think children should see them.
Given that we are not living in a sharia state, moreover, political argument may not be prohibited merely because it expresses ideas that members of society may find offensive or disagreeable, as the court reaffirmed in 2011.
So just because something's disagreeable doesn't mean you can ban it.
Now here's hoping that justices have the good sense to take the Colorado case, and here's hoping that we learn an important lesson on the right.
As we've seen in countless contexts, abortion becomes choice, marriage becomes hyphenated marriage, tax becomes revenue, spending becomes investment.
The left is simply better at the language game than we are.
It's the nature of the beast.
Progressives are trying to transform.
We are trying to conserve.
They are forever thinking of strategies to move the culture away from traditions.
We are standing there and yelling stop.
The system works only because of liberty.
Free speech gives us the ability to react vigorously with effective arguments that expose the weakness and misdirection at times of the other side's claims.
But if at the front end you are going to concede the left's clever use of language to establish the terms of the debate, and then on the back end, you're now going to concede the left the capacity to limit or even suppress your response, then you're guaranteed to lose.
Which means lose everything.
Now, in this instance what he's talking about, abortion.
Abortions become choice.
The people who engage in abortion could not have nearly the success if there were pictures of what actually happens.
Partial birth abortion.
They just they fight tooth and nail to make sure those pictures are not seen.
Too troubling for young children.
We say First Amendment.
We're not talking about choice.
We're talking about abortion.
Abortion is the taking of a life.
No, it's not.
It's reproductive freedom.
And you don't have any right to say about anybody because it's not your body.
So we concede the loss of the language, abortion becomes choice, and all the other languages, the changes that we agree to and surrender to.
And then on the back end we stand by while they tell us what we can't say at the same time.
Because we want to be shown as understanding and compassionate, and we don't want to upset people.
So when it comes to abortion, the gruesome aspect of it is only to be done, but never spoken of.
Never seen.
Can't have that.
That's not fair.
That would that would that would unfairly prejudice people against it.
And the left is not going to permit that.
So the Republicans had nothing to do with denying cancer patients treatment.
The Republicans didn't do the sequester.
It was a Barack Obama idea.
The sequester does not feature any actual reductions in spending at all.
And yet today, the news is that Medicare patients cannot get cancer treatments because the sequester cut money authored by the Republicans who do not want cancer patients to get treatment.
That's the news of the day.
Gotta take a break.
We'll come back.
Your calls after this.
Don't go away.
Speaking of um of gruesome photos, folks, what about all the pictures the government puts out about smoking to show the ravages of lung and mouth and throat cancer?
And how about all these gory commercials?
This is your brain on drugs.
Even as we speak, and in the midst of all of this, even as we speak, the U.S. Centers for Disease and Control are posting ads showing people who have been mangled because of smoking.
Fifty-four million dollar ad campaign.
And the ads feature a woman who lost her voice box, uh a man who lost his leg, throat cancer victim appears in a commercial where she's shown putting on a wig, inserting false teeth, covering the hole in her neck with a scarf.
But we can't show.
See, the government can do all that.
And the government can run ads like that.
The government posts pictures to scare you into doing things they don't want you to do.
Except actually they do.
They they want you to keep smoking, if the truth be known, so you pay taxes for children's health care programs.
But it's another story.
But let a private group decide to run some ads showing pictures of aborted fetuses and all hell breaks loose.
But we can show pictures of what happened at Guantanamo or Abu Grab or whatever all day long, can't we?
So the left knows they just do not allow it to be used on them.
Which they get away with.
Barb in Minneapolis, I'm glad you waited.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Hi.
Hi, Rush, thank you for taking my call.
I had a my little boy was diagnosed with leukemia at age three.
He died just before his sixth birthday.
Oh, geez.
Just before uh during that time I was going through a very nasty divorce.
Things got pretty ugly.
And to this day, twenty two years later, I still remember what a nurse told me.
She said there is a difference between feeling guilty and feeling shamed.
When you're when you feel guilty, you can apologize and you can say you're sorry.
When you feel shameful, when you're shamed, you cannot say you're sorry.
And chances are likely that you will never hear an apology.
Twenty years later, I remember that, and I think of that so often because it seems that I'm seeing that so many times every day in my life.
People cannot say they are sorry.
Well, and now they're being told that's good.
Don't say you're sorry, you'll feel worse if you do.
You will feel more empowered if you don't.
Now I got it, folks.
I must tell you, this is the second call on this.
If you can see my email inbox on this, this story I have been teasing for three days.
I really didn't think it was that big a deal.
It was more an interesting sort of human interest throwaway thing.
Hey, look at this stupid story.
They got a bunch of people out here with a survey that says, never apologizing.
That's a way to really love yourself.
That's a way to have self-esteem.
And I've been setting it aside.
I finally got around to doing it today, and my email inbox is overflowing with people who want to weigh in on this.
The second call in a row that we've had on this.
One of the themes running through my email is the is the is the notion of penance and penitence that that there is a, of course, a biblical Bible thumping uh uh component to uh forgiveness.
That science is now even trying to pervert that.
Uh you Bible thumpers know what's going on.
Anyway, the emails are I mean, there's tons of them about this.
This this uh and they and the vast majority of them have had time to scan overwhelmingly think this story is all wrong.
That says, don't apologize, don't ever apologize.
If you apologize, you're weak.
If you don't apologize, you're strong, you maintain your dignity, you maintain your self-respect, and the minute you start apologizing, you feel weak.
You feel manipulated, put upon and all that.
And the survey says it's much better.
We don't want people feeling that way.
We want people feeling empowered.
We want people feeling good about themselves.
So don't apologize.
And I I can't tell you the reaction this is getting in my email.
And every once in a while this happens.
We have a little subject that we think is a throwaway that just erupts out there.
Okay, I gotta take another brief time out here at obscene profit break.
Sorry, folks, have to do this.
Back after this.
Back to the phones we go.
El Rushbo serving humanity here on the EIB.
Now, by the way, we do have holding on, we've got an oncologist on hold from Dallas, who says that that I am dead wrong and that the Washington Post is dead right.
And that there are there are severe uh reimbursement cuts for for cancer patients.
So in the break, I've been looking into this.
I think I may understand what's going on.
I apologize if I don't.
But we'll find out here in due course.
In the in the meantime, John in Dover, Delaware, I'm glad you waited.
Great to have you on the program.
Hi.
Rush, thanks for taking my call.
Great show.
Long time ditto head, first time caller.
Thank you, sir.
Absolutely.
Honest mistakes do happen every day.
And uh most successful businessmen know that apologizing for these honest mistakes is a successful business strategy.
There is an axiom that says it is better.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
See, see strategy.
And strategy means insincere.
Correct.
Absolutely correct.
And uh brings to mind an old uh uh friend of mine who got into trouble on a construction project, major construction project while the buildings were being demolished.
One concerned citizen petitioned the local historical society to let them know that one of the dilapidating dated buildings was actually the home of a long-forgotten city father, and the construction project was in danger of being held up.
I mentioned to my friend that yes, a lot of times it's easier to beg forgiveness than to beg permission.
And the next morning, the building in question had been accidentally demolished.
Now that's an interesting theory.
And I happen to subscribe to it.
Better to ask forgiveness than permission.
Yes.
I just go ahead and do it.
And then say, oh, gee, I'm sorry.
I really rather than ask and be told no.
Absolutely.
So being able to apologize for such honest mistakes is a actual uh game clear.
Yeah, but you're talking about a strategy.
You're not talking about something that you really mean from the heart.
Well, sometimes when you're trying trying to make progress, you do actually make some honest mistakes.
You mean profit, don't you?
You mean profit.
That's what you mean by progress, right?
I'm just trying to hear this as a as a as a low information voter would hear it.
Exactly.
Yeah, right.
But a lot of times in the uh zeal to uh to advance your company's interests and your own interests, mistakes do happen.
Yeah.
And the best course in that situation is to apologize and beg forgiveness and move.
I tell you, this is I've uh John, I appreciate the call.
I did this This um subject is blowing up.
Something just as simple as saying you're sorry, a bunch of researchers come along and say, don't ever.
The whole audience here's blown up.
I tell you I was on when when Jay Leno had his ill-fated prime time show every night, the one at 10 o'clock after he left the tonight show, and they moved Conan O'Brien in there, and then a Jay Leno show at 10 didn't work out.
So they moved Jay back to the tonight show where he still is, and Conan Bryan uh Conan O'Brien was moved out.
I did on the on the day that I I did most of the voiceover work for the Family Guy episode starring me.
I went over and and did Leno's show, and Leno had an ongoing gag out in the parking lot, they had a track set up with an electric car, which was one of their sponsors.
And Leno was asking all the guests to get in the electric car and see how fast they could complete the course.
He asked me if I would do it.
I said, Hell yes.
I'll be glad to show what an electric car can and can do.
Hell yes, I'm happy to.
Well, they had a rule that you had to wear a crash helmet.
Well, and they wanted to be able to talk to you while you're driving.
I got a problem.
I cannot wear a crash helmet and my cochlear implant at the same time.
The crash helmet, I it would cochle implant is attached by magnet to the skull and it would not stay on.
And I cannot do that and not hear whether I'm can't hear the studio communications or not, just anybody.
I can't do something like that deaf.
So I said, I can't wear this helmet.
And you I mean we had to stop everything.
Major meetings with the NBC lawyers.
How are we gonna because they wanted me to drive the electric car.
I wanted to drive the electric car.
They had this – and this is an insurance rule.
It's a liability rule, an indemnification rule.
I mean, who knows what could happen?
Could have been some Bible thumpers out there and and and get in the track, and you never know.
I mean, it could have been any anything could happen.
So they wanted they wanted indemnification, the insurance company did, but there's no way I could wear the helmet.
So here's what we did.
John and Dover, you'll you'll be very proud.
We simply said better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission.
So I got in a car without the helmet.
I drove the course, and if anything happened after we were going to plead ignorance and throw ourselves asking for mercy on whoever we needed to in order to stay out of any trouble.
Because this the show had to go on.
And there was nothing that was gonna happen, but I can't put that helmet on and wear my implant at the same time.
And I don't want to go out there and have it said that I refuse to do the course.
And who's gonna understand?
You got low information people watching.
Who's gonna understand Limbaugh refused to drive because of cochlear implant?
What's that, Mabel?
Don't have time to explain it.
So the simple thing was to do just don't wear the helmet and do the course.
And then if there were any problems to apologize profusely after the fact for screwing up, totally taking it all on, totally admitting the mistake, absorbing it all.
And that's what we did.
Nothing happened, probably will now.
But nothing happened.
Everything was fine.
All right, here's our uh our oncologist in Dallas.
Dale, I'm great uh glad that you called.
Welcome.
I'm glad you held on.
Welcome to the program, sir.
Hi, Russ.
You set me up with the story about the need to apologize because you screwed up in the post story.
There is really a cut in Medicare, and here's what it is.
Uh medical oncologists who see and treat patients in their offices are allowed to uh charge for the pharmaceuticals which they purchase a thing called ASP which is average sales price plus six percent which is about lets them break even when you figure the overhead of dealing with the patient.
That's the Medicare situation.
That's right.
There's a two s a two percent cut and it's not two percent or six percent.
Their reimbursement goes down to four percent of the uh plus ASP.
And that means that they're actually uh absorbing a loss on each Medicare patient they treat.
Uh but wait that's not what the story says.
Story says you're not right either I guess because you're you're turning them away.
Story says you're refusing to treat you I can't tell you much about that one way or another.
You gotta take care of the people.
Well that the point of the story is that the doctors are turning cancer patients away and not giving them the drugs, not treating them because of the sequester.
Some may it happens the organization that I'm familiar with is not as far as I know doing that.
But here's the deal medical oncologists in community practice in many parts of the country have had to close their offices because they can't they can't do business giving away more than they're taking in.
Well but that's that happened before the sequester.
That's just part of Obamacare.
Yeah but they they this hit which uh reduces their Medicare margin by one third uh is not acceptable to them and some of them I suppose are saying hey you're gonna have to go somewhere else to get your care.
Okay about that.
Let me let me read to you from the Washington Post story.
You tell me if this is right.
Says here medications for seasoned citizens my word is medication for seniors usually covered under the optional Medicare Part D, which includes private insurance but because cancer drugs must be administered by a doctor they are among a handful of par pharmaceuticals paid for by Part B, which covers doctor visits and is subject to the sequester cut.
The federal government typically pays community oncologists for the average sales price of a chemotherapy drug plus six percent cover the cost of storing and administering the medication since oncologists can't change the drug prices they argue the entire two percent cut will have to come out of the six percent overhead and they are refusing to treat patients because of that.
Yeah it's not the six percent overhead is being reduced to four percent uh by the cut that the government in instituted medical very upset about that doctor who reduced the margin who who picked this two percent reduction the CMS sets that it's it's funny over the years it's CMS wobbled up and down your question again.
Who is CMS?
Well actually that's the uh division of the Department of Health and Sir Human Services oversees Medicare.
Okay, right.
Okay.
So they're the government's doing this.
Yeah.
All right not well they're they're laying it off on you in the story.
Of course.
Why would they want to take the blame when they can get away?
It's like you said.
Do it and then apologize profusely.
Yeah, but you and I really don't disagree in what's happening here in the bottom.
The government's laying all this off on you, and when I say the government, in addition to trying to make it look like the Republicans are responsible for this, because it's the Republicans who did the sequester when they didn't.
And I don't know, the sequester really doesn't have any real cuts from a baseline.
It does in that one sense because it it uh and that's why I picked up the phone and called you because there really is a reduction and I'm in touch with my colleagues who tell me that this is a source of great concern for them because they're already closely hauled on their margin.
I know how close are you just pulling out of the system because of that.
Oh he can't do that.
What's to prevent you from setting up your own private practice with cash paying patients and you don't even mess with all this I don't think the you know rush some of these drugs are really expensive and I don't think a a cash paying patient that is gonna is going to be able to handy up eighteen grand for a single uh treatment of certain of the newer really sophisticated anti cancer drugs.
It just won't work how effective are they surprisingly so when you when you've been around as long as I have you it's wonderful to see that things have gotten better to the degree that they have gotten better.
Okay so but back to I just want one point of clarification.
I'm not trying to set you up look if I'm wrong in the premise of the question feel free to say so but I'm looking at this and it seems to me that the Secretary of Health and Human Services could have chosen to get whatever money or not spend whatever money somewhere else.
She did not have to cut your overhead wouldn't made as good a press though would it all right well then you're answering my question.
So it was it it was done purposely to generate a story like this.
Absolutely make you guys look like bad guys, make the Republicans look like bad guys, make both of you look like you don't care.
You're only in it for the money.
I think I was listening to you uh a few weeks ago when uh the uh history of the sequester I put it squarely uh at the front door of our president right and he also said during a debate with Romney that it wasn't gonna happen but it was also his idea it was it was one of his ideas to make sure that what we're going through now didn't happen.
He thought the Republicans would cave at the thought of defense budget cuts.
He thought they would never ever let that happen and they finally called his bluff on it and it's where we are so now they're in damage control and blaming everybody else like you the sequester itself and then trying to transfer blame for that to the Republicans.
So, Dale, I appreciate your call.
I thank you much.
And we'll be back.
Much more straight ahead.
Do not go away, folks.
All right.
I just I just checked during the break, folks, on the sequester.
And because the sequester specifies specific cuts, for example, defense and Medicare.
That's the whole point of it.
The question becomes, are there legitimate cuts or just reductions in the rate of growth?
The sequester law.
law specifies that Medicare the entire universe of Medicare can be cut no more than two percent for a fiscal year.
It does not say it has to be cut at least what I was able to peruse during the break it says that Medicare can be cut no more than two percent but it doesn't say it must be now that may be splitting hairs but nevertheless we have a we have an admitted Bible thumper from Marietta Ohio on the phone hi Mark great to have you on the program sir.
Hello hi Rush how are you doing today?
Very well sir thank you.
And I'm a lifetime Bible thumper.
Lifetime Bible Thumper.
Yes, sir.
Well, it's great to have you on the program.
Thanks for calling.
Well, thank you.
What I was calling about was when I would correct my kids and have them apologize for a situation, it wasn't to make them feel good.
It was to make them have better character long term.
And so I think this whole subject is very relative because if you look at Obama as an example, he never apologizes and, look at the character that he has as he's grown well I know what you're talking about.
And when you go back to what you said here at the beginning you you said the apology is not to make your kids feel better.
It's oriented toward the feelings of others correct that that's correct it it's to apologize for the situation evidently they were wrong and I I think of cases but where they were actually wrong I had them apologize and it wasn't to make them feel better it was to correct the situation.
What about when they haven't done anything wrong but an apology might diffuse it what what do you do then well uh then that's that's with me I can't speak for others even for my own kids I have to leave that up to them.
And that's part of that building of character to make the right decision at that time.
There are times where if you're not wrong um uh you do apologize to try to correct the situation then also.
But it may not correct the situation, so then there's not a need to apologize.
So what do you hear when you hear this study, this scientific study that says never apologizing, that's the way to empower yourself, and that's the way to hold on to your dignity.
You can't you can't enjoy hearing that.
I mean, that's science once it's science of all that messing with uh a belief that no doubt with with you has its roots in the Bible.
Uh well, yeah, but uh if you also look at it, uh we've been talking about global warming also, and that's also uh added to science, but uh we see the fallacy in that too.
Well, science has become politicized.
Oh, absolutely.
Acculturated and and and politicized, no question.
Well, Mark, I appreciate the call.
I'm glad that you got through, and I'm glad you held you you you held on.
Appreciate your patience.
That's that time again, folks, an obscene profit timeout once again upon us.
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