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Aug. 13, 2013 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:48
August 13, 2013, Tuesday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
It is another glorious EIB busy broadcast day, and I am your host, Rush Limbaugh, the hardest working man in the no business.
And yesterday, the end of the program yesterday, I kind of shocked everybody.
At least I know I shocked everybody here on the highly overrated staff by saying it wasn't a bad show, given there wasn't anything to talk about yesterday.
And they look, what do you mean nothing to talk about?
You know, it's it's it's the most amazing.
I've been doing this for 25 years, and yesterday, to be quite honest with you, yesterday was a program that I thought had to rank as one of the most boring, dullest in recent memory.
And as soon as it was over, I had two members of the staff say, wow, what a great show today.
And they meant it.
I mean, they because they didn't know how I felt about it.
I hadn't told anybody.
Uh and it just never amazes me.
And then there are days in here where I think I have just set new standards, and everybody's, oh hum, no big deal.
Nothing strange about this show.
Yesterday there was nothing to talk about, and I acted like there was nothing to talk about.
And oh man, was this really good?
I'm still learning.
I never figure this out.
I I'm I try to employ all the empathy I can.
Uh it's crucial.
You know, empathy, you've got to be able to anticipate the way I describe empathy doing this program, you're in your car driving around.
I have to know when you're about ready to hit that button to go somewhere else.
That's that's empathy.
And uh I thought yesterday that's all you were doing was getting ready to hit the button, and everybody said, oh no, that was that was wonderful.
So here we are.
Every day a new day, new learning day.
Uh, even after all of these years.
Telephone number if you want to be on the program, 800 282882, the email address lrushbo at eIBNet.com.
The strangest thing, to me it was the strangest thing.
I had to double down, and I'll admit this to you, probably shouldn't admit this to you, because I am the hardest working man in no business, and it means I know.
But there was something that had me temporarily stumped today.
And it's the news, it's been it's been out there for a while, just nobody picked up on it.
The news that the regime has delayed these uh the the caps on out-of-pocket expenses in Obamacare.
And uh it confused me because that means that those are those are consumer cost protections.
So I I'm not I I the cap, the whole the whole language confuses me.
Caps on out-of-pocket expenses.
I had to still, what is an out-of-pocket expense on health care?
Because to me, it's all out of pocket.
I pay for all of it.
So what what I don't use my health insurance.
I just I just don't.
I I don't even know if I have any.
But I've if I do, I don't use it.
So it's it's all out of pocket to me.
So well, I know.
I mean, I'm I'm gonna be joining the Hoy Poloi nominal.
I'm just uh uh may as well go to you know become a congressional staffer and and maintain my current health care status.
Anyway, it's all out of pocket to me.
So I what does this mean out-of-pocket expense?
Who's capping what?
What's being kept, and why is this such a big deal?
I mean, I had to do a crash education course for myself today.
And what I have figured out, and the uh here's the real reason I was confused, it's because there's been delayed till 2015, and these are consumer cost protections that have been blown out.
These are the insurance companies being protected.
The evil insurance companies are the ones that get this benefit.
And I'm thinking, why do this prior to the 2014 midterms?
Why not do something that keeps costs down for voters?
This is gonna cause everybody's Insurance costs in every way you can imagine to skyrocket because the insurance company can now make you pay anything they want out of pocket.
There aren't any caps on it.
These consumer cost protection.
And by the way, when you the Obamacare is called the Affordable Care Act, this was the affordable part.
The consumer cost protections, the caps on out-of-pocket expenses, the caps on what you were going to have to pay, that was the affordable or is the affordable and the affordable care act.
So what Obama has done, and as the New York Times tells us, by the way, this has been up on a government website for months, but it was it was mixed in with a bunch of legalese and mumbo jumbo and and and nobody caught it.
They didn't trumpet it.
But what the the insurance companies here are getting a break, not the consumer.
And that's that's what had me confused about this.
Because we've had the employer mandate has been delayed.
Um that, of course, uh the the well, the employer mandate requiring the employer to provide you insurance.
That that's been uh delayed.
Uh now the out-of-pocket caps, which are the consumer cost protections, they've been delayed.
And remember, before all of this, whenever you went into an exchange, you had to you had to prove somehow that you qualified for a subsidy.
You don't.
You can go into an exchange, because that's been delayed too, but none of this is being implemented on time because it's unworkable, it's undoable, it's simply it's just a mess.
It just can't be done.
And here's the way the New York Times writes this.
In another setback for Obama's health care initiative, the regime has delayed until 2015 a significant consumer protection in the law that limits how much people may have to spend on their own health care.
The limit on out-of-pocket costs, including deductibles and co-payments, was not supposed to exceed $6,350 for an individual and $12,000 for a family.
But under a little no ruling, little noticed ruling, federal officials have granted a one-year grace period to some insurance companies, allowing them to set higher limits or no limit at all on some costs in 2014.
So what this means is that the ultimate promise of Obamacare to keep your costs down by limiting what the insurance company could demand you pay as your share of whatever treatment you get has been delayed.
Now the insurance company cannot is not forced to set a limit on what you pay and they cover the rest.
The insurance company can now charge you whatever they can raise your deductible, they can lower your deductible, they can get rid of your deductible.
Now the further investigation, and I have to admit I I probably shouldn't do this, because I'm in the no business, and this was all foreign language to me.
What this ultimately means is that when 2015 arrives, after this delay, everybody's costs are gonna go through the roof.
Consumer insurance company, that's what Obama is deferring.
That's the regime is what they're trying to do is to defer, because they've told everybody that their premiums are coming down $2,500.
They've told everybody that Obamacare is going to lower the deficit and reduce the national debt.
And uh what Obama has done is delay, see the so convoluted.
The truth of the matter is that everybody's costs are gonna skyrocket.
That's the design of the plan, so that you can't afford private sector insurance and have to go to government.
Single payer is what they want.
And the way they're gonna get you there is making it impossible to afford via insurance.
That's the objective.
It's always been the objective to make it impossible for the average family to afford it.
To blame the private sector insurance companies for all the expenses, for all the costs.
To set Obama and the government up as the saviors when that happens.
Well, that was supposed to start happening this year.
And if the midterms were not so crucial and not so desirable and not so important to Obama, they would have allowed this to implement.
But instead, the upshot of all of this is that the massive cost increases, the massive price increases on everybody are being delayed here until 2015 until after the midterms.
So this is just the next delay or waiver on implementation of Obamacare.
The employer mandate, the thing that required your employer to provide insurance, that's gone.
That's delayed till 2015.
So your employer doesn't this Obama wants your employer to stay in business one more year.
Because the employer mandate's going to put a lot of them out of business.
Especially when the fines catch up with the cost of a policy.
And then the other big thing, and there have been thousands of waivers for individual companies, as you know, but the other big thing that's happened is that the requirement that you prove that you qualify for a subsidy at an exchange, that's been broomed entirely.
Now all you have to do is walk into an exchange and tell whoever's there or online when you log on and do it there that you qualify and you do.
It's the honor system.
The only people who are not affected by any of this are government staffers.
They are the only people unaffected, as you know.
Congressional staffers are going to get their health care costs paid for to the tune of 75%.
Obama negotiated that personally for them after they whined and moaned and complained.
Remember, uh, they earn anywhere from $70,000 to $175,000 a year, and they said we can't afford what this is going to cost.
Oh, that wouldn't look good.
Members of Obama's government can't even afford it, so they've made it affordable for them by subsidizing them maximum $11,000, $12,000 a year.
Now, how about these these amounts here?
The limit on out-of-pocket costs, this is what you pay.
This insurance is going to cover X, then the out-of-pocket, that's what you pay.
The limit, this has all been broomed now until 2015, but the limit on out-of-pocket costs, including deductibles and co-payments, was not supposed to exceed $6,350.
So you, or anybody, an American consumer, was going to be responsible for at least $6,000 of your health care costs maximum.
That was going to be capped, and then whatever treatment you required above that, the insurance was going to pay.
That's now been broomed.
There is no cap, and if your treatment costs $12,000 and the insurance company doesn't want to pay it, you're stuck.
And I'm still surprised that they're doing this, sticking it to the consumer prior to 2014.
There are far more consumers than there are insurance companies.
But what they're really delaying here is massive costs increases for everybody that would implement with because see if if you have it it's like water, if you cap out of pocket expenses, you tell, you know, uh Mr. and Mrs. Enos Slobodnik out there in Ottawatomy, you know, Louisiana.
You tell them that no matter what happens to them, the most they're going to have to pay is $6,000.
Well, Mr. and Mrs. Enos Slobodnik are very happy.
But if Mr. and Mrs. Enes Slobodnik incur expenses of $12,000 to $15,000, somebody's got to pay it.
And guess who?
Those of you who pay and buy insurance.
Premiums would go up to cover this.
That's what is scheduled to happen.
When you put caps, when you tell some people that their costs are not going to exceed X, when their costs do exceed X, somebody has to pay for it.
And it's going to be covered by rising premiums for everybody.
That's what Obama is limiting.
The rising of premiums, the increase in premiums to cover people who go above and beyond their caps.
Have I made this somewhat understandable?
I hope.
The bottom line, the point is nothing is free, and we have a lot of people who think it is.
Nothing is free, and the caps were one of these artificial elements to make it appear as though it were affordable or not really free, but uh I still think for some people paying $6,000 a year in health care costs, it's got to break their back.
I mean, that that that is a lot of money for health care.
And that was what the cap was.
You wouldn't have to pay any more than that.
But now there's no cap.
They can charge you whatever, folks.
But the fact that there isn't a cap theoretically means that premiums won't go up on others.
So while costs are going to go up for some, they're not going to go up for everybody in the form of higher premiums.
But next year, the the next 2015, they will.
Because the caps go into place, $12,000 for a family, $6,000 individual.
When the caps hit, that means some people are going to have their health care, not insurance, health care costs paid for.
Somebody has to pay for that.
And that'll be covered with increased premiums.
Those premiums going up is what are what have been delayed.
And everybody has to have insurance.
Everybody.
Or pay a fine.
So what Obama has done is delay these rapidly rising premiums, which we're going to face as a result of these caps whenever this happens.
This is the affordable part of Obamacare, the caps.
The affordable for you, the affordable, and these consumer cost protections have now been delayed.
Okay, now we have some confusion here on the caps and what they are.
Now the New York Times story mentions $6,000 for a single person, $12,000 for a family.
However, there's a story from Forbes today that quotes from the actual law.
And it basically says Section 2707B, the Public Health Service Act, as added by Obamacare, requires that a group health plan and a health insurance issuer offering group or individual health insurance coverage may not establish lifetime limits on the dollar value of benefits for any of the participant or beneficiary.
Annual limits on cost sharing are specified by Section 1302.
Starting in 2014, deductibles are limited to $2,000 per year for individual plans, $4,000 per year for family plans.
There's all kinds of mandates and regulations that are going to make it more costly.
So what was going to happen, according to Forbes, starting next year, the caps would be $2,000 for a single person, $4,000.
I mean, that's all they would have to spend.
Everything above that would be covered by somebody else.
Who?
Well, everybody else that pays or buys insurance premiums would have to go up to make this possible.
The qualification for these caps is quite large, by the way.
So vast majority of the American people would see caps not of six thousand and twelve thousand, but of two thousand and four thousand, at least on their deductible.
But that's not going to happen.
That's been delayed.
Essentially, there are no caps now for all of next year.
So that 6,000 figure, the 12,000 figure that's in the New York Times, had the law been implemented, the numbers would have become 2,000 and 4,000, not 6 and 12.
Well, it's it doesn't mean that the expenses are going away.
It just means that certain people are not going to be paying them.
And the way this was going to be handled was through the miracle of premium increases on everybody who didn't qualify for these caps.
That's what has been delayed.
If you are going to endeavor to read about this yourself, there are two stories out there today, and I would heartily recommend that you focus on the Forbes story.
Because I really think the New York Times story is purposely confusing and not complete.
I don't think the full picture is presented in the New York Times street.
Let me summarize for you.
I don't know about you, but some of this language, I have to really apply myself.
The whole notion of out-of-pocket caps on out-of-pocket expenses, I had to go to school on that.
I've gone to school on it.
I know what it is now.
And here's the bottom line.
The Forbes piece adds a lot of important data that the New York Times avoids.
And the most important takeaway on this news today is that once the insurance companies are no longer allowed to collect these out-of-pocket fees and deductions, they're going to have to charge far more for the premiums.
And that's going to make everybody's rate skyrocket.
Everybody.
So there is a huge advantage to the regime in putting that off until after the midterms.
Here are the numbers.
The New York Times says that right now the cap on a single person is six grand.
I'm rounding off here.
And 12,000 on a family.
Those are the out-of-pocket expenses, the combination of what you spend at the pharmacy that isn't covered, your deductible, and all of that.
Now, Obamacare, according to Forbes, and they cite the law, where it's not their assertion, they actually quote from the law, the actual limits on cost sharing specified by the law are $2,000 per year for individual plans and $4,000 per year for families.
So for whoever qualifies for this, the most out-of-pocket they can pay is either $2,000 or $4,000.
Well, their expenses, their actual expenses, are going to greatly exceed that.
So who's going to pay for it?
Everybody, including them, everybody's premiums are going to, as long as there are insurance companies.
And I think this is a fundamentally important point to make as well.
Because right now, that's where everybody is getting their insurance.
The government is simply, even at the exchanges, the government is selling insurance or offering it from private sector companies.
But fewer and fewer of them are participating because it doesn't make any economic sense.
So if the trend continues, it isn't going to be long before private sector insurance companies don't exist, which is the plan.
It's not next week, it's not next year, it's years out, but that's the plan.
So what Obama has done, telling everybody, yeah, their costs are going to go down, your premiums are going to go down at first.
There are going to be for certain people the maximum amount they will be forced to spend on whatever their health care costs are is either 2,000 or 4,000, depending on their singular family.
But if let's just take the case of a single person, Enos Slobodnik.
Enus has a debilitating disease, and it costs him $12,000 a year to be treated.
The most Enus is going to have to pay is $2,000 of it.
Somebody's going to have to pay the $10 that he doesn't.
And there's going to be everybody else via rising premiums.
The insurance companies are not going to sit there and simply absorb this.
Nobody would.
They're going to go get the money that they have to spend somewhere, and they're going to get it from paying customers.
Premiums are going to skyrocket.
Now at some point, the premiums are going to get to the point nobody can afford it, at which point Obama or whoever, Democrats are going to ride in on their white horse and say, these people are ripping you off.
This is not what Obamacare intended.
We tried to rein them in, but they've found ways around it to screw you and rip you off.
So we're going to come in and save the day, and we're going to offer you cheaper alternatives here in our single payer window.
That's the ultimate plan here.
The thing that is confusing is that there really are two caps.
The annual, which is a cap on the deductible, which the consumer obviously wants to be as low as possible, is...
And then there's a lifetime cap on total payouts, and the consumer wants that to be as high as possible.
And the lifetime cap is going to be, I think a million dollars, a million, a million and a half.
Once you have reached that, you're done.
It's sort of like gift taxes in the IRS.
You have, and it may be incrementally higher now, have to check.
But over the life, over your lifetime, you can give a total of a million dollars tax-free.
Once you do that, once you exceed that, the tax on every dollar you give is like 43 or 44%, and you pay it.
Now, the the the giver.
Now the right now, you can give anybody $13,000 a year tax-free.
But every time you do, that's subtracted from your lifetime allowance of one million.
So if most people never gonna affect them.
The idea that people are going to give away a million dollars is never going to happen to the vast majority of people.
But I simply use it as the as an example, because there's a lifetime limit on how much you can give tax-free.
And it's the same thing.
There's a lifetime cap on insurance that you don't have to pay.
And I think it's a million, a million and a half, it's coming down.
So there are two kinds of caps.
We're talking about the lifetime cap, and we're talking about the annual.
And it's the annual cap that I've been talking about here in the examples that I have been offering today.
But the bottom line is this.
The caps were supposed to come way down starting in January.
The amount of money individuals would have to pay on their own was going to come way down.
That would cause premiums everywhere to skyrocket.
Noticeably so everybody would notice it and get mad.
That is what has been deferred until 2015.
It looks like the insurance companies are being given a break here at first glance.
When you first look at this and you say, well, what because the caps are not going down, individuals are still going to be subjected to the current caps.
And you would think going into the midterms at Obama, the regime would take steps to make it easier on the consumer, because there are a whole bunch of them and they're voters.
And in truth, he is.
It's just that in giving the insurance companies a break here, what he's actually doing is putting off for one year what can only happen, and that is dramatically increasing health insurance premiums.
Because once the new caps go in much lower, somebody's got to make up the expectations.
expense.
That's what's been delayed for one year.
So the practical result of this is that the huge expenses, new expenses, that everybody is going to feel with Obamacare, I mean, above and beyond what have already been felt, have been delayed until after the 2014 midterms.
So as not to harm the president's party.
It's purely a cynical political ploy.
Kathleen Sabilis, Health and Human Services Director, is out there saying that this is not a bait and switch.
But it is.
It is entirely baitful.
Well, minor correction.
I Sorry, I got one thing wrong.
I need to straighten out.
Obamacare does away with the lifetime cap.
The current lifetime cap is one and a half million.
The Obamacare does away with it.
Meaning there is no limit on how much the how much the insurance company must help pay for your coverage, your treatment.
Right now there's a million and a half cap lifetime that that removes.
Now, it may sound good to you as a consumer, but you're going to pay for it on the other end on higher premiums.
Money is money.
Costs are cost.
They're not going down.
Everything associated with health care is going up.
Everybody's going to have to pay it.
Obamacare is an attempted allusion to make a lot of people think they're getting a big break.
And you've we've had callers here.
You've you've got people in your office the day after this thing was signed into law thinking it was free.
You got all kinds of people out there thinking this is going to cost them anything or much.
And it's going to cost everybody a kitten caboodle, but not starting until 2015.
That's the basic sum of this.
I mean, here's again, Section 2707B of the Public Health Service Act, as added by Obamacare, requires a group health plan and a health insurance issuer offering group or individual health insurance coverage may not establish lifetime limits on the dollar value of benefits for any participant or beneficiary.
So there'll be no limits on how much insurance companies have to pay out.
No limits.
Can't stay in business that way.
Do you know how insurance companies make their money?
No, no.
Do you know how they do it?
You know what they really do?
Yeah, they're betting on actual area.
What do they do with your premiums?
That's right.
They invested in other things.
All they are are giant, they're they're bookies.
In a way, I mean they're legalized, but they're they're making a bet with you.
You want to ensure the fact your house isn't gonna burn down?
You're gonna make you're gonna make a bet, they're gonna make a bet that it will.
You make a bet that it won't.
Here's the negotiated price.
Life insurance, same way.
You pay the premium, everything's adjusted in their favor, obviously they hold the cards, and then they take all these uh premiums and they run out and make investments in it.
This is what got AIG in trouble.
Hank Greenberg, the guy that ran that came up with some of the most creative ways for AIG.
They weren't that they sold insurance, but what they were actually doing with the premiums collected, it was all legal, but it really ticked off Elliott Spitzer.
Because it was too creative.
So he became a target, Greenberg did.
But all they they take all this premium money and they they invest it and they try to grow it all kinds of ways, and they don't like to pay out, quite honestly.
Honestly, they do in in uh certain circumstances for PR purposes.
You have a natural disaster tornado, they're really right in there and paying off.
But um it's it's uh they're just making bets with you.
what's happening here is they're now being told, because of this law that there is no limit on what they are going to have to pay.
They can't stay in business.
Nobody could, which is the ultimate aim of this.
Now let me I'm going to take a brief time out.
We're going to start squeezing in your phone calls.
We got Pete Rose has some fascinating things about baseball and A-rod.
Kim Kardashian's mother, Chris Jenner, has launched into Obama for making fun of her daughter and Kanye West for mocking them.
Oh, yeah, it's getting dirty.
And there's even more Oprah news out there.
It turns out now that the clerk at the store is denying everything Oprah said.
Denying Oprah's entire story and asking why in the world this famous rich person would want to come in and destroy her.
She's saying it never happened.
So that's uh it's a lot of things percolating out there, ladies and gentlemen.
This is your place.
Because I, L. Rushbow, am the hardest working man in the no business.
I don't.
I don't have a cap on anything.
So I don't know what a cap is.
I mean, I not the right one.
I know I of course I know what a cap is.
In in this case, I didn't know who was capping what and why.
And I had to just figure it out.
And I and I did.
But out-of-pocket expenses, everything's an out-of-pocket expense for me.
Yeah, I know about the I'm I have deductibles too.
I mean, look at what what do you I've been deductible on my uh on my home.
You know what the deductible is on wind coverage here?
Hurricane.
It's like a million dollars.
It says you don't even buy it stupid.
They don't want you to buy it.
Million dollar deductible.
I know what that is.
You have deductibles on the uh on the automobiles and stuff, but I I I never make a claim.
And isn't it interesting?
The rates still go up.
I never make a claim.
Never.
I everything I pay out of pocket.
Whatever.
Bubblegum, I don't eat bubblegum.
Nobody gives me anything, is the point.
I don't know.
I'm not the 80s.
I don't get subsidized on anything.
I don't want to be.
Don't misunderstand.
I'm not crying over spilt milk here.
I wouldn't want to have to keep up with it.
Well, I mean, you when you get this, I know, because ever all you're gonna be doing when when you are being subsidized, what are you doing?
You're spending all your time trying to figure out whether you're getting screwed or not.
That's not a bit.
Thank you.
Mmm.
Yeah.
I know.
Here's uh Stacy.
Oh!
Oh!
This is our this is our insurance expert from uh from from the uh unknown wilds of the state of Georgia, Stacy.
Gee, I if I'd have known it was you, I'd have gone to the phone sooner.
I'm sorry.
No, that's okay, Russ.
How are you doing?
Well, I'm fine.
How are you doing?
Ah, what a day.
Well, listen, there's so much to talk about.
Um, and when I read the New York Times article this morning, I just knew I had to call you because there's so many problems with it.
But the most important thing is that the story.
Problems with the story.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, it's not it's not completed all.
But the most important thing to tell you is that there is a much more dramatic issue here for the 2014s than than premiums.
What?
Let me explain it to you.
All right.
You go to your doctor and your doctor writes you a prescription for an antibiotic.
You go to the pharmacy.
Now there's three entities involved in that transaction at the end.
What if I have built up an immunity to the pharmacy itself.
There's what's called a pharmacy benefits manager.
Oh, geez.
And then there's the insurance company, okay?
Now realize that Obamacare doesn't apply to the pharmacy benefits manager.
Okay, they can do whatever they want to do.
In terms of communications, in terms all this stuff doesn't apply to them.
Stacy, this is my bad.
I I didn't I didn't put two and two together and recognize that it was you, and I'm up against it on time.
Can you hold on?
Sure.
You have some time for the Next half hour.
I do.
Great.
Folks, if you've not heard Stacy before, she knows it upside down, inside out, and uh extremely adept at explaining something very complex in an understandable way.
So don't go away.
We'll take a brief time out, be back after this.
Okay, let's boil this down as we uh get ready to talk to Stacy in the uh in the next segment.
Obamacare is mandating very low caps on deductibles and no limit on how much insurance companies have to pay out over a lifetime.
And those companies are gonna have to make up that money somewhere, and that'll gonna it's gonna happen by raising everybody's premiums.
And raising premiums on everybody, i.e., voters, is what Obama has now delayed until 2015.
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