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Sept. 26, 2013 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:48
September 26, 2013, Thursday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Hey, hey, hey, greetings, my friends, and how are you?
I have been so looking forward to 12-noon today.
Ever since about 3.30 yesterday afternoon, I've been looking forward to 12 noon today.
Great to be here.
And I know that you think it's great that you're here.
So it's all hunky-dory.
Great to have you.
Lots going on, as you can expect.
And of course, proper analysis by me can read the stitches on the fastball.
Can see the spin on the curveball.
Telephone number 800-282-2882 if you want to be on the program.
So, and we've got the audio soundbites coming up of this.
And yes, I'm going to get to Ted Cruz mentioning my father's speech.
I'm going to do that.
I kept intending to do that yesterday.
And you know me, when it's about me, I keep putting things in front of it.
But we'll get to that today.
But again this morning, the esteemed leader, Barack Obama, went out to some community college in the Washington area, somewhere in Maryland, to sell Obamacare.
He went out there to tout the glories of Obamacare.
Now, why?
When Ted Cruz gets up, makes a speech about it, everybody says, well, got him on.
Come on, Ted, sit down.
It's a law of the land.
Well, what's Obama doing?
It's a law of the land.
Why is Obama out touting this?
But I have an even better question, ladies and gentlemen, and it's this.
Why didn't Obama tell Congress a couple of weeks ago what a wonderful thing Obama is?
Obamacare is?
He's out there touting it to this audience in Maryland, and he's going to be on the campaign trail a lot, selling Obamacare, talking about how wonderful it is, how rotten and dastardly the Republicans are for trying to stop it and defund it.
But he's basically out telling everybody how wonderful it is.
Well, the question is, why didn't he go to Congress a couple weeks ago and tell them how wonderful it is instead of giving them a taxpayer subsidy for 75% of their premiums?
He didn't tell this audience today that they're going to get 75% of their premiums subsidized.
He told them how wonderful it is.
He told them how inexpensive it is.
He told the audience today how great it is and how cheap it is, and they're going to get to keep the doctor.
And all these things the Republicans are saying is a bunch of lies.
But he went up to Congress two weeks ago and they complained about it.
He says, okay, okay, well, I'll make sure that 75% of your premiums get subsidized.
So why didn't he tell Congress how wonderful it is two weeks ago instead of offering to help them pay for it?
I mean, my point is, if it is so wonderful, if it saves so much money, if it has all of these marvelous benefits, why didn't he tell Congress that two weeks ago when they were complaining about how much it costs?
And why doesn't Obama go to the unions and tell them what a wonderful thing Obamacare is?
And why didn't Obama meet with the 300 restaurant franchisers who were on Capitol Hill last week and tell them about the glories of Obamacare?
No, ladies and gentlemen, as usual, he only goes before an audience made up of college kids and other low-information voters who know even less about what he's talking about than he knows.
Which, not hard to do.
The bottom line is Obama doesn't care about these details.
He doesn't give a rat's rear end about them.
All he wants is this thing implemented fully because the objective here really doesn't have that much to do with health care.
He doesn't care about the details, except when the people he needs complain about it, then he'll give them what they want.
I mean, if, can you imagine a defund Obamacare effort, how much more likelihood it might hold if members of Congress really were upset with how much it was going to cost them.
But then Obama came up and took care of that.
He's subsidized 75% of their premiums, so they now don't care.
But if he hadn't subsidized 75% of the premiums for Congress, Senate, and their staffs, then they might not be so eager to have this thing fully funded and implemented.
But Obama took care of them.
But when he goes out to these low-information audiences and college kids, he doesn't care.
He just tells them how wonderful and how great it is, and they'll deal with it later.
You really have to wonder if Obama care is so great, why did Congress demand to be exempted from it?
And they did.
I mean, they demanded to be exempted from it like the elites demand to be exempted from everything they subject all the rest of us to.
Why are the unions trying to get their own carve-out?
Why is everybody trying to make some move to get their own carve-out or waiver from this thing if it is so wonderful?
In fact, if it's so wonderful, why does it even need to be sold at all?
Why does Obama have to go out there and tout the thing if it's so wonderful?
I mean, it ought to just sell itself, shouldn't it?
Now, some people, I have received emails today from people who have heard about West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin.
What Joe Manchin has said today is that he might break ranks from the Democrats and vote for a funding measure that delays the individual mandate.
Now, the employer mandate has been delayed until 2015.
The individual mandate has not been.
The employers got a one-year waiver from being required to provide insurance for their employees.
But the individual citizen is still required, mandated to have insurance or pay a fine.
And Manchin has said that he is willing to break ranks and vote for a funding measure that delays Obamacare's individual mandate.
Now, this, folks, is all well and good, but I want to remind you of a little history.
I was reminded of it this morning in a very persuasive way, and I want to pass that on to you.
Well, you might get all excited about Joe Manchin saying one thing or another.
Don't forget that he's for Obamacare.
He voted for it.
And keep this in mind as well.
There are Republicans, by the way, in reaction to Ted Cruz who disagree with what Cruz did and Cruz's whole strategy.
You've seen it.
You've heard it.
Republicans, operatives, consultants, elected officials out there said, go ahead and let this thing get implemented.
Just let it go, let it fall apart because it's going to fall apart.
Let it collapse, and it's going to be on Obama, and it's going to be on the Democrats.
And let's get these Democrats on the record supporting this.
This seems to be a frequently heard Republican strategy.
Let's get these Democrats on the record supporting this now because it's going to collapse.
Let me tell you something about this.
It may collapse.
You think Obama is going to get blamed for that?
Who's going to get blame when it collapses?
Who assigns blame in America, the media?
So, who's the states are going to get blamed if they got Republican governors, and Republicans in Congress are going to get blamed for all this that's going on now if it collapses.
But there's another aspect of this that's a little bit frustrating to me.
I mean, the idea that we can't stop is just let it collapse is akin to go ahead and let the Democrats win and let people see how rotten the country gets and then they'll never get re-elected again.
And that was a strategy that people wanted to employ with Clinton in 1992.
It never works.
It assumes that every voter is top-flight informed and is aware of the ideological differences in the two parties, and they aren't.
They're not aware of the ideological differences, many voters, and many of them are low information anyway.
But can I take you back to 2010?
Do you remember how Obamacare passed?
This is what really, when you stop and think about this and relate it to what's happening today, can really rub you raw.
In 2010, Obamacare passed, 2009, whatever, it passed with only Democrat votes for every Republican consultant and every Republican strategist and every Republican commentator who's out there saying, let's get these Democrats on the record supporting it.
They already are.
They voted for this.
In fact, they were the only ones who voted for it.
Now let's add insult to injury.
What else happened in 2010?
The Tea Party.
The 2010 midterms resulted in a Democrat Party shellacking.
They lost nearly 700 elected seats all over this country, from the House of Representatives to state legislatures and all the way down to mayor and town council and unit.
They got drubbed.
And it was because of Obamacare.
All the way back in 2010, a majority of the people in this country didn't want it.
They're already on record.
So when you hear a Republican say, well, let's get these guys on record, they already are.
My point is, there has been enough evidence to hang an albatross around the Democrats' necks for the last three years.
The Republicans have just chosen not to do it.
Instead, they've been cozying up on amnesty and cozying up on being fearful of a government shutdown.
So when a guy like Manchin comes along, hey, Joe Manchester, he will break ranks to vote for a funding measure that delays Obamacare's individual mandate.
Hey, hey, this thing only became law because of Manchin and everybody.
He already voted for this.
The idea that there's a Democrat now that's opposed to Obamacare, he's not renouncing his support for Obamacare.
It may be a fine point, but the fact of the matter is every Democrat is already on record supporting this because they're the only ones who voted for it.
And despite that, the Republicans still, the last two years, have felt it necessary to attack the Tea Party and not the Democrats.
And this week, the Republicans have felt it necessary to attack Ted Cruz and not Obamacare.
Ted Cruz didn't vote for it.
The Tea Party didn't vote for it.
The Republican Party owes its majority in the House of Representatives to the Tea Party and the midterm elections in 2010.
And yet, Cruz ended up being the target of genuine anger of people like Senator McCain and others on the Republican side.
And the only reason we're here today talking about this, the only reason that we face this fundamental transformation of this country is because of the Democrats who are being given a pass.
And now all of a sudden, one of them comes out and says, you know what, I might support a measure that delays Obamacare.
We want to applaud a damn Democrat while we still crucify one of our own.
Mind-boggling it is.
Yeah, I know the measure to defund or delay the individual mandate hadn't even been written yet.
It's just a torch.
The Democrats know you don't like this.
They know that vote that they extended for this is a big problem for some of them in the 2014 midterm.
So a bunch of them are going to say this to get on record.
It's much like the Republicans said that they're going to do everything they can to get rid of this until the moment of truth came, and then they didn't do everything they could to get rid of it.
But they said they were going to.
So here comes Manchin saying he might, he could, it would possibly happen, break ranks and vote for a measure that delays the Obamacare individual mandate.
The fact that Obama is still out there selling this, the fact that the people he really needs, even now, for this thing to be fully implemented, he's buying off by giving them waivers or offering them subsidies, such as members of Congress and their staff.
The fact he's out there selling it is clear indication even now that there is nowhere near any popular support for this.
Must take a brief time out.
We'll do that and continue with all the rest of today's exciting excursion into broadcast excellence and we come back.
Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
Folks, as I was perusing the news doing show prep today, it was really striking to note how many stories, how many articles that are out there this morning that detail all of the problems in Obamacare.
Now, it's nothing you don't know.
You've heard it all.
We have gone to great lengths since the beginning days of this.
You know all the details.
But what's fascinating to me, as I went through show prep today, is how many articles are out this morning with new and troubling details about Obamacare, which to me shows that the drive-by media now think Obamacare is totally safe from being repealed or defunded.
And now it's time for whatever journalistic reasons to get all of the truth, the details, the news about Obamacare out there.
Now, as I say, most of the news is information that the regular daily listener of this show has known about for more than three years, but the media has never reported it.
You know, all of these details, all of the waivers, all of the exemptions, all the fine, all of the hard numbers, all of these things have never been in the drive-by media, but it's starting to show up.
All of a sudden, we're now being told about it so that when people start seeing Obamacare up close and personal starting next week, the drive-bys can say, well, we reported that.
The news media now covering their assets, if you will, and they're doing it as late as possible, which again tells me that they think it's safe now to tell everybody about it.
I mean, it's amazing.
All of these reports on how the true costs of Obamacare do not include the high deductibles or the out-of-pocket expense for treatment and medication.
I mean, things that we've talked about here for three years, but the drive-bys are just now getting around to reporting it.
And it's so they can say, well, we told you about this.
This shouldn't surprise any of you.
Now, the theory is, Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal today says that next Tuesday, when Obamacare begins its final and full implementation, what will happen is the discrediting of the entitlement state.
In fact, his line in his piece today, The Wall Street Journal, the discrediting of the entitlement state begins next Tuesday.
Let it happen.
And what he means is this can't work.
It's going to collapse.
People have expectations based on what Obama is even telling them today of how cheap it's going to be, of how plentiful it's going to be, how easy it's going to be, and none of that's going to be.
And it's going to collapse, and people are going to be livid and outraged.
And the theory goes that as it collapses, that people will all of a sudden realize that government can't do this better than the private sector.
That all of this has been a lie, that all of this has been trumped up, and that we should no longer trust government for this.
I'm sorry, but that's not the history of liberal.
This stuff has to be beaten back.
If the theory that it discredits itself worked, FDR would not be in the top five greatest presidents ever in as many people's minds as he is in this country.
If liberalism discredited itself, Obama would have never gotten elected.
And the New Deal would have gone by the wayside, and LBJ would have never gotten a great society.
It does not discredit itself.
It has to be explained and beaten back.
An email I checked at the bottom of the hour breaks.
So come on, Rush.
Give us an example of what you mean.
The drive-bys are reporting things that we already know.
Okay?
Here's something, for instance, from the Politico.
Exchanges may have high out-of-pocket costs.
We've told you over and over who is running the exchanges.
They are left-wing activists like the NAACP and unions, gay rights groups.
They're the ones getting the money to staff the exchanges, both the brick and mortar and the websites where you're going to go to get insurance.
And they're siphoning off some of the money.
It's a slush fund.
The exchanges are slush fund money.
They're payoffs in the Democrats to their supporters.
That's one thing.
But we're now told that they're going to have high out-of-pocket costs.
Yeah, and we're also told that the software isn't ready to go.
Well, we told you that a couple of weeks ago.
It's now just showing up in the drive-by media.
In the Politico, from their article, consumers may have to dig a little deeper into their wallets to pay for health care at the Obamacare exchanges, according to a new analysis by Avalier Health.
The study of six states suggests that consumers could face steep cost-sharing requirements like co-payments, coinsurance, and deductibles layered on top of their monthly premiums.
It's a reminder that despite news trumpeted Wednesday by the White House suggesting exchange premiums will be lower than expected, consumers will have additional numbers to crunch.
But see, it was important for the White House and their media minions to trumpet those bogus estimates so that nobody would listen to the lunatic Ted Cruz, who was telling everybody the truth in his speech or filibuster.
So the regime puts out this notion yesterday that the costs of implementing Obamacare at the exchange are going to be very low and so forth, and the media duly reports it.
But then today, when Cruz is finished, here comes the truth about all these add-on costs, which we've told you about over the past few months.
Here's more from the political story.
The report estimates that a middle-range silver plan would have a deductible ranging from $1,500 to $5,000, which is higher than the average deductible of $1,135 for an employer-sponsored plan.
Consumers will need to balance lower monthly premiums against the potential for unpredictable, expensive, out-of-pocket costs in plans with higher deductibles, said Caroline Pearson, vice president of Avalier Health, in a statement.
Well, if you've been listening to this program regularly, you knew this was going to happen because you had been given the data and the documentation of how all these costs are being underestimated and undersold so that Obama could carry on this notion that Obamacare was going to be cheaper for everybody.
The Avalier study also suggests that exchange enrollees, which is going to be everybody, could see higher drug copays and co-insurance than those in employer-sponsored plans.
But wait a minute, you were going to be able to keep your employer.
No, you weren't ever going to be able to keep your employer.
I told you that, too.
Anyway, all this stuff is starting to show up now in the drive-by media.
But this little story about the additional costs at the exchanges, this is why the theory is out there that this is ready to collapse, that people are just totally unprepared for the absolute mess that awaits them.
And that when they're confronted with it, there's nobody to blame but government.
Because the government did this.
And who is the government?
Obama.
This is the theory among those who say, let it collapse because then the entitlement state will be discredited.
Now, Daniel Henninger, again, the Wall Street Journal, Obamacare's Achilles' heel is technology.
The software glitches are going to drive people insane.
Creating really large software for institutions is hard.
This has been delayed, by the way, because Sebill just said we don't, we're not, we don't.
I mean, it isn't, it isn't going to work, but this is why the regime has eliminated any verification for subsidies.
What regime has eliminated so many requirements so that the problems will not be faced?
So we'll have to see on this collapse business.
I'm not so certain.
Using intelligence guided by experience, as I say, it's look at it.
It'd be really nice, folks, if all of this, when it collapses, people immediately pointed a finger at Obama and the Democrats because they're the only ones who voted for it.
But the Republicans, all this time, have not been educating people on what's wrong with this.
And instead, they have been portrayed as opponents, naysayers, negativists.
It's Obama who has appeared positive and all.
Oh, this is going to be wonderful.
Oh, it's going to be cheap.
So when it collapses, the media, you think they're going to support the idea that it's Obama's fault?
Who are they going to point to?
They're going to be pointing to the naysayers, the negativists, the Republicans who didn't want it to work and all this sort of stuff.
And the governors in the Republican states where these exchanges are.
The task to properly assign blame for this is going to be Herculean for us once again, because the natural conclusion, see, if there had been, over the course of the recent past, if there had been the ideological, I had a guy send me a note last night, but wants to possibly advertise on the program.
Very, very intelligent guy.
And as he closed his notes, he said, Can you believe?
Did you ever believe?
This guy's IQ is about 230, by the way.
Okay?
Written countless books.
Is an accomplished historian, although it's not his profession.
He says to me, Did you ever in your wildest dreams think Obama would be this bad?
I wrote back.
I said, Look, I don't mean to sound braggadocious, but yeah.
Two, I said, I hope he fails.
He told us what he was going to do five days before he was inaugurated.
He said the fundamental transformation of this country begins in five days.
Not a fundamental, but the fundamental.
He's told us he is who he is.
It has not been a minute.
He was never a moderate.
He's always been a radical.
And this note from this guy that I got, I think, summed it up for a whole lot of people on our side.
They just from the get-go, just another Democrat that won, just the latest Democrat to win.
He's actually going to be someone moderate, they thought.
And now they're shocked and stunned, which I intellectually don't understand.
My IQ isn't half what this guy's is.
And I said to him, we wouldn't even be here now.
We wouldn't be hoping for a popular uprising against all this if we had properly identified this guy ideologically for people.
We didn't because we were afraid to.
I'm the only one, Snerdley.
The Republican Party didn't want to get anywhere near it.
Very few people on our side really wanted to talk about what a radical leftist extremist Obama was.
They were all afraid to.
So, when I say we, I'm exempting myself.
Of course, I didn't, but it just seemed such a lost opportunity.
Now, the same people are waiting for everybody else to figure out when this collapses that the entitlement state doesn't work and that statism doesn't work and a liberalism doesn't work.
Well, if Obama hadn't been blamed for anything yet that's gone wrong for the economy, for jobs, for the debt, if he hadn't blamed for any of that, why is he going to get blamed for this?
Well, the answer is, well, it's a natural conclusion to make, Rush.
It's Obamacare.
It's his bill and so forth.
I hope that they're right.
I hope that if it collapses, that people properly understand who's to blame for this.
I'm not trying to be a negativist.
I'm trying to be a realist.
You know, I'm the mayor of Rielville here.
We'll see.
Time will tell.
Here from the, let's see, the AP.
Ricardo Alonzo Zaldivar.
Administration officials are quietly telling key interest groups to expect initial glitches signing up online for coverage under Obamacare.
Two sources tell the AP, this is exactly what I'm talking about.
You've known this, that they're just now at AP writing stories about there might be trouble here.
Two sources tell the AP that small businesses will not be able to enroll online starting October 1st when new health insurance markets go live.
Instead, one of the sources, a person who was briefed on the situation, said business owners will initially have to mail or fax their information so they can enroll.
The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because an official announcement hasn't yet been made.
Separately, the regime told Hispanic groups that the Spanish language version of its healthcare.gov website will not be ready to handle enrollments for a few weeks.
An estimated 10 million Latinos are eligible for coverage, but they won't get it because the Spanish language healthcare.gov website isn't going to be ready.
Nothing is ready.
Not one aspect of this is going to work.
You all know that.
This is exactly what I mean about the media all of a sudden now getting people ready for what's coming.
I got to take a break here, my friend.
Sit tight.
Back with much more and your phone calls in just a second.
Don't go away.
Now, let me give you the conclusion of the politico piece that I cited mere moments ago as evidence of the media all of a sudden detailing for everybody what's wrong with Obamacare.
The politico article ends with a warning that higher out-of-pocket expenses are going to keep people from going to the doctor.
Well, then, why did we do Obamacare again?
If Politico says this, this is the regime's mouthpiece, Higher out-of-pocket expenses.
Do you remember, folks, that the cap on out-of-pocket expenses has been delayed?
There is in Obamacare a limit on how much you will have to pay out-of-pocket.
Those caps, those limits, have been delayed for a year.
So there's no limit on out-of-pocket expenses.
And the politico says that they are sizable enough that they might keep people from going to the doctor.
Just won't have the money to afford it.
Now, why are we doing this again?
Why are we doing Obamacare?
If it results in costs to individuals so high they can't afford it.
Why are we doing this?
Was it to insure the uninsured?
Was it to make it more affordable?
Was it to make health care coverage more plentiful?
Why are we doing this?
Remember, this is not me analyzing.
This is the politico ending with a warning.
Higher out-of-pocket expenses are going to keep people from going to the doctor.
Everything we were promised about this has turned out to be untrue.
It has not lowered cost.
It is a new tax.
We cannot keep our plans if we like them.
We cannot keep our doctor if we like him.
And even if we could, he may not still be working.
He may quit.
Even if you get to keep your doctor, good luck in finding him.
He might be at the cabin fishing for salmon.
This law, this whole thing, should go down in history as the biggest bait and switch ever.
The politico, by the way, does not mention that the caps on out-of-pocket expenses have been delayed for a year.
They don't mention that.
These caps were to protect you.
These caps were in there to make sure that you weren't raped by evil insurance or evil doctors or evil pharmacists or evil whoever.
And they've been delayed for a year.
So there's no limit on what you can be charged above and beyond for out-of-pocket things not covered by your insurance.
And they're still going to end up at the end of all this, 30 million people uninsured, even after it's implemented.
Why are we doing this again?
Well, why did we do this again?
Carrie in Cannespill, Montana.
It's great to have you.
You're up first on the Rush Limbaugh program today.
Hello.
Hi, Rush.
How are you?
Well, despite the way it sounds, I'm actually pretty rotten.
No, I'm okay.
I'm fine.
I'm good.
I'm good.
I'm rotten.
But before I get on to that, I just want to tell you how much I appreciate you and keeping me informed.
I literally crave hearing the truth.
And the only way I can get it is to turn on your program.
Well, thank you.
I get so little of it elsewhere.
Thank you.
You flatter me.
I appreciate it very much.
You know, what I wanted to say today is I'm just sick over listening to the media today and their reaction to what Senator Cruz did yesterday.
I don't think they, nobody, not even Republicans, or maybe, you know, there's a handful maybe that did hear him, but they didn't hear what he was saying.
They may have listened, but they didn't.
Yes, they did.
Yes, they did.
Well, he was speaking for me.
That's right.
They didn't want.
They don't want to acknowledge that they heard it.
That's why they're upset with what he was doing.
They heard every word he was saying.
He was holding them up as culprits in this.
And he was calling them out.
Every Republican is on record as saying this is unacceptable.
This is intolerable.
And they're going to do everything they could to keep it from happening.
In a moment of truth, they're not.
I've got that.
We've got some.
You know, I better start on the audio soundbite so we get back.
I'm going to have two days in a row here.
We got some good stuff here.
What?
No, no.
The amount of time the staff puts in putting it together.
No, that's not a factor at all.
Whether or not I use it.
No, no, no, no.
It's just.
That's just mean.
I'm just teasing.
It's all a factor.
It's all this pressure.
Got to do this, got to do that.
Because a lot of people are working very hard putting this together.
Some of it's really good.
It's just, I'm sounding so good today.
You know, I just.
Okay, the end of the first hour.
Broadcast excellence is at hand.
Lots of stuff in the stacks of stuff today.
And a growing audio soundbite roster.
So we're going to come back and whatever I feel, whatever strikes me, whatever hits me is what we're going to do.
And I don't even know yet.
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