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April 11, 2014 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:39
April 11, 2014, Friday, Hour #2
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News Express by the host of this program, documented to be almost always right, 99.7% of the time.
Great to have you with us, my friends.
It is Friday.
Let's hit it.
Live from the Southern Command in Sunny, South Florida.
It's open line Friday.
Open Mind Friday, whatever is on your mind and you want to talk about it, you call today.
800 282-2882.
If you want to send an email, L Rushbow at EIB net.com.
It's also the 24th annual curathon for leukemia and lymphoma.
It's our 24th year, folks.
And look, I don't like giving out statistics and stuff early on, because I don't want to.
But this is just we're running 15 to 20% ahead of last year already.
And it's just amazing.
Um I don't know.
I've just run out of ways to say thanks.
I have I've I'm just, I'm, I'm just in constant awe of those of you in this audit.
You know what I tell people who have asked me over the course of the years what they think the secret to success of the program is.
And I said, well, it's a good show.
I mean, people find a good show, they like it, they listen to it.
But there's this more than that.
There is a there is a, and I'll tell you why this program the I'm just gonna tell you why this program is feared and envied at the same time.
It is because of this bond of loyalty that you all have for for this program and for me and all of us here, it's been unshakable.
I mean, even I have I've tried my hardest to break this bond, and I can't.
Thank God.
It's just amazing.
It is unlike any other audience in media.
It there is a direct connection bond that goes beyond the normal reasons a program has an audience, i.e.
they like it, it entertains them, it informs them.
There's there's more here than than just that, and there always has been, and it's why my dad told me, well, I guess the first couple years I did something, I I cracked a joke that nobody thought was a joke.
They believed me and got us in trouble.
He said, son, you're gonna have to.
They believe you, son, they trust you.
You can't play with them like that.
Unless you tell them.
You just can't.
And he was he was exactly dead on right.
So here we are in our 24th year.
And everybody thinks we ought to be tapped out.
Everybody thinks that by this much time, whatever anybody has to give, they've given, whatever interest they have to give, it's gone.
Twenty-four years, quarter of a century, it's a long time.
And yet, here you are, out distancing last year.
Thank you.
And it's just continually has me in awe and constant appreciation.
And I was um if I may dig deep here, and I don't want to embarrass anybody, but I was I sent uh a friend of mine a note.
You should get older.
In my case, become more philosophical about life.
And success is not at all what I thought it would be.
And some of it is, but there's so much I didn't expect, didn't anticipate.
Nobody can.
You dream about it when you're on the ladder climbing up, you imagine what it's gonna be like, and naturally you tell yourself wonderful stories that are oriented in dreams.
And you just, in my case, you dream about it, but you just don't have the knowledge or the experience of a success track to actually know what it's gonna mean, you know, how it's gonna manifest itself.
Now, one of the things that I thought 25 years ago, f 30 years ago, 35, you know, the 16, start dreaming about becoming successful in radio.
I figured if I pulled it off, and I always knew I was gonna be top talk, but not 25 years.
You don't think about things like that.
You just you think about hitting it.
And that's where one of the pitfalls comes in.
So I thought that the longer the success track lasts, the easier things get.
Not that you phoned it in, but just that the pressure subsides.
Because you've already proven being successful, being in the pinnacle means you've proven it.
And I'm here to tell you it's the exact opposite.
I was telling a friend of mine in an email today, I have never in my after 24, 25 years of the program, I have never felt more performance pressure than I do today.
Every day.
You know, when I say the program meets and surpasses all audience expectations, I know that's what's at stake.
And the expectations are high.
And if they're not met, it's eminently noticeable.
Somebody that's not very good at something, who doesn't do something very well, when they don't even do it as well as they normally do, you hardly notice it.
Somebody who's thought to do something really well and doesn't quite get there, it's a big thing.
Wow, something didn't sound right today, or what have you.
And it's all good.
I'm not, don't misunderstand, I'm not complaining about it.
It's just that it's not what I thought it was going to be.
I thought things would slow down, that there would be a little bit more stopping smelling the roses and joining.
It's none of this the exact opposite.
And it's not because of any competitive awareness that there's all a bunch of people out there that that are striving to have what I it's not that.
It's it's all about making sure that all of this time that you have spent here and all of the effort you have made to help this program succeed is not dishonored.
It's all contained in the universe.
All this pressure is all contained in the universe of this program.
It's nothing to do with anybody else.
It has to do totally with making sure that if you're going to spend the time and the investment to come here every day that you're not wasting it.
And so the effort to make sure that happens, the pressure that's attached to it, the performance pressure, not life pressure, not think I'm going to lose my job pressure, nothing like that.
Just the just the performance pressure of expectation is higher than ever, and it gets even more intense the longer it goes.
And I that's the surprise.
I thought it would lessen the intensity and so, but it doesn't.
And that's because I still take it as seriously as I ever did, it's as important, if not more so than ever, even after 24 years.
And this Curathon embodies all of that.
Here we are in our 24th year, 24 straight years of me asking you to help people with blood cancers.
And I'm in there too.
You know, I don't ask you to do something I don't do.
But nevertheless, I'm still asking you to make donations to a cause that I happen to believe in, know a lot of people affected by it.
I know a lot of people who chemia lymphoma society, I've known them for 24 years.
They all have personal attachment to the to the cause.
They've all been personally affected by it.
And so the it's a lot of pressure for me to ask people for money.
I don't normally do it.
Um I don't expect people to ask me either.
That's the same way, but yet I do one day a year.
And here you are, you come through.
And every year, barring one, I think, for 9-11, you you beat the previous year.
No matter what your economic circumstances are.
And I this is the closest I can come, I guess, to thanking you, and telling you how aware I am of what you have done and continue to do and how much it is appreciated.
It's appreciated on so many different levels.
And I hope that each and every one of you who have the chance to donate and do each and every year, I hope that you get, even if it's just for a brief moment, a real sense of calm and achievement and realization that you are part of something really meaningful and good.
Because you all are.
As I said, opening the program an hour ago, it's great.
We got to call him Donald Trump.
He's driving around.
He heard this and he wanted to send in $25,000 and want to know the address.
And that is great, but not everybody can.
And it's not expected.
The $25,000 from Trump or people like that Those are bonuses.
The people that make it work, just like the people that make the country work are you, who've got $5 or 10 or 25, 500, whatever.
This audience is so large, it's so participatory that it doesn't take a lot of money from a few people to hit the nut.
Takes a little bit from a lot of people.
There's nothing that's too little.
There's no donation that's too small.
So many people think, ah, I'd be embarrassed.
All I've got, I don't want to put a $5 charge on a credit card or $10.
I don't want to be embarrassed.
Don't be embarrassed by that.
You've got to realize that millions like you, and that it all adds up, and it's the end result that counts, and everybody participating in it has the right to really feel good.
I mean, look at what you have done on this day, past 24 years.
Now, this audience is largely made up of conservatives.
Not all of you are conservatives, but large number of you are.
You all listen to the show and know and have heard me describe what makes this country great, and what makes this audience great, and who I believe are the people who actually make this country work, I.E. you.
And in the course of my time during the Cure-a-thon, you have answered the bell each and every time.
You've done it coming out of recessions.
You've done it coming out of war, natural disasters, dysfunctional government.
You've never quit in spite of whatever challenges you face in your life.
Always have been there for this.
And in doing that, you give this country hope every day.
You give those afflicted by these blood cancers the hope they can see tomorrow.
Turn survivability into liveability.
There aren't any cures yet, but what used to be counted as survival rates are now actually lives being lived.
In some cases, fully.
I've been doing Leukemia Lymphoma Society Cure-Thon for 24 years.
And when I started this, the prognosis for people with these diseases was grim in many cases.
Children were robbed of even seeing their fifth birthday.
Parents too, facing a different form of the disease, sometimes never saw the day either.
Kid's fifth birthday.
It's a shocking thing being told that you or your child or a loved one has cancer is devastating.
But like the patients battling to hang on, you in this audience haven't given up either.
You haven't said, come on, Rush, move on to something.
We've been there and done that.
I've never heard that from anybody.
I've never heard the stick to the issues crowd, amazingly shuts up on this day.
I've never heard, I've never gotten, I will now since I'm teasing them.
But I've never heard from the stick to the issues crowd on our Leukemia Radio Monday.
Everybody's there.
And it's it really is, is because of people like you that there's any progress at all.
And every year we do it, there's more good news to report about the fight, which I'll have some of that as the program unfolds today.
So this year and today we're gonna fight some more.
Because the diseases have not been defeated.
Some of them are in retreat.
Patients aren't just now surviving.
They are living.
And again, it's not anybody but you collectively who have made this happen.
So the number's 877-379-8888.
If you want to call to make a donation, you can also do it online at Rush Limbaugh.com.
Just find the Leukemia Radioton button there to click on.
It'll take you where you need.
Here are the lists is the list of premiums.
75 to 99 dollar donation to get a t-shirt.
One size fits all.
It's an XL.
It's a 2014 special t-shirt, four-color, 100% cotton, all natural fibers, sort of a 1960s design.
For $100 to $374, we add a golf cap to the t-shirt.
Khaki colored golf cap signature and the EIB logo are stitched on the front, not printed.
Not screened on or any of that.
And for $375 or over a golf shirt on top of the golf cap and the rush t-shirt and a golf shirt sizable comes in small to double X. This color this year is Kiwi Green.
And again, the EIB logo is stitched on the left chest and my signature is on the sleeve.
And again, the shirt comes with the t-shirt and the aforementioned cap, so you're fully outfitted.
It's 877-379-8888 or rushlimb.com.
Now, one more thing before we go to the break here.
I've been holding this story since I found it on February 19th.
It's from a website called Medscape.
And here's the headline.
And this is what intrigued me.
Insurance exchanges limit access for blood cancer patients.
I say, whoa.
So I read it.
Here are the highlights.
Although Obamacare will make it easier for patients with leukemia and lymphoma to obtain health insurance, it could inadvertently limit their access to care.
According to a new report commissioned by the Leukemia Lymphoma Society, a number of the health plans that are participating in the insurance exchanges offer limited access to National Cancer Institute designated cancer or transplant centers, which will substantially raise out-of-pocket costs for patients.
It's just another example of the kind of horror story we're getting out of Obamacare.
Premiums are doubling.
The co-pays, the deductibles are tripling.
In some cases, you get insurance, but your hospital's not in the network.
Some cases you get the insurance, but your doctor's not in the network.
Some cases you get the insurance, but you're not treated.
And that's what's happening here.
Qualified health plans are sporadic at best and ineffective in covering National Cancer Institute Transplant and Cancer Center, said Brian Rosen, who's the senior vice president of public policy at Leukemia Lymphoma Society.
example, in New York.
We looked at major insurers in the exchanges and found that Memorial Sloan Kettering was not covered by many of them.
Memorial Sloan Kettering is where you want to end up.
That folks, that's why what you're doing today matters.
That's the kind of thing that helps overcome what has now become an obstacle in the nation's health care system.
Openline Friday back to the phones.
This is Eric in Medford, Oregon.
Hello, sir.
Great to have you here.
Hi, thank you.
Hey, um, I was calling just to say and I've been trying to say that to really just about anybody.
I my problem with Obamacare isn't so much that that everybody ought to have health or insurance.
I'm for that, but he built it as being affordable.
And speaking for myself, just in the state of Oregon, it's not affordable.
The minimum plan you can get under the Obamacare plan is about $400 a month.
And I feel as though it's much like when they made automobile insurance mandatory.
They they made it mandatory for you to have it, but they never set a limit on what could be charged for it.
And uh in the state of Oregon, you know, $400 a month to somebody who's making minimum wage.
Uh that's the same.
I know that's that's why they call it the Affordable Care Act.
That's part of the lie.
It isn't affordable.
But that's why the government's out there selling subsidies.
Do you qualify for a subsidy?
See, the the trick is you can't afford it unless your neighbors help you buy it.
That is the hook.
Subsidies.
Open line Friday, El Rushbow, executing his night host duty's flawlessly 24th annual Curaton Leukemia Lymphoma Society of America.
877-379-8888 or rushlimbod.com to donate.
Eric in Medford, Oregon, hung up after he asked the question.
He made a good point.
Obamacare is not affordable.
The Affordable Care Act isn't affordable.
Obama knows that.
He lied about this $2,500 premium reduction.
He lied.
Told you three years.
You keep your doctor if you like your doctor.
Keep your plan if you like your plan.
And if I had a member of the regime here, I'm sure if I, for example, if I had the uh the strikingly beautiful and attractive young new secretary, Health and Human Services, Sylvia Burwell.
Uh she would say, well, that's why we have subsidies.
For those of you who can't afford it, we are offering subsidies.
Now here's how the subsidy works to qualify for a subsidy.
You have to earn no more than 400% of the federal poverty level.
Which family of four, you can you can qualify for a subsidy, I think, if you earn 87 grand.
Your family incomes 87, then you qualify for a subsidy.
Now, what is a subsidy?
A subsidy is your neighbors paying what you can't afford.
That's not what it is, Mr. Lombard.
That's not it at all.
The federal government pays it.
Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. New Castratti.
You're right.
The federal government is paying it.
But Mr. Newcastrati, where does the federal government get its money?
Prints it or it takes it from the people somehow, some way.
It is your neighbors, your friends, and people you don't know who are paying what you can't afford.
When you and by the way, according to latest numbers, if they're believable, whatever the number of enrollees, four out of five enrollees are on subsidies.
Four out of five.
Latest projected Obamacare cost $2 trillion.
The question the question has been raised.
Well, look, we get 30, 40 million people uninsured.
Why didn't we just subsidize them?
Instead of totally blowing up the health care system.
Just take just take 300 billion dollars and pay for it and insure them and then be done with it.
But that would not give the regime control over the population.
That would not give them control over one-sixth of the economy.
That was just a ruse to get people to support it based on compassion and so forth.
Oh, we're going to help the uninsured get c oh, wonderful.
83% of enrollees are getting subsidies right now.
It it's it's not just a welfare program, it's a transfer of wealth program.
It is wealth redistribution.
It's disguised as a As a health care plan.
Uh, who's next?
Is it still Carl in Rome, Georgia?
Hi, Carl, great to have you.
He hung up.
That's why it's not great.
So be Tim in Mount Vernon, Missouri.
You're next.
Great to have you on the program.
Hello.
Rush Divos from Mount Vernon, Missouri.
Thank you, sir.
Uh I don't always agree with you, but you always agree with me.
I'll take it.
Hey, I was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia about three and a half years ago.
And I've had a round of Rituxin and uh made from mouth blood.
Yep, mouth blood.
And I'm on Buribicum now, which is a hundred dollars a pill and uh three pills a day for the next six months.
So I'm not the million dollar man, but I'm about a third of a million dollar man right now.
Wait, wait, wait just a second.
Did you say rotexin?
Ritoxin, R-I-T-U-X-A-N, I think.
Rituxin.
Okay, and it comes from mouse blood.
Is it is it effective?
Is it is it uh uh is it is it chemo?
Is it like chemo that you're getting?
It it's handled just like chemo, except it's it's uh not it's not term chemo.
Um I could show you my chart where my blood white blood cell count was uh nine ninety thousand after uh six of a dose of that and a half a dose of that next week.
It was down to normal levels that have been there ever since.
And it's a hundred dollars a pill.
And you you would you you you would say that you are living in addition to surviving this, right?
But but yes, so let me back up the rituxin was up fourteen thousand dollars a bag.
I've had about twenty bags of it.
The pills I'm on now in Burbica just released two months ago are a hundred dollars a pill, three pills a day.
Well, it's incredible.
Um if if this had happened to you some years ago, it wouldn't you you your consequences would be different.
That's that's the point here.
Uh but listen to the cost.
$14,000 a bag for the for the medicine that's required here.
And none of this is guaranteed covered.
It's like we have the stories, you know, Obamacare, you can get the insurance, but sometimes you can't get treated.
Sometimes it's so convoluted.
This is another reason why, folks, what you do matters so much.
So you go 877-379-8888 or go to Rush Limbaugh.com and donate, you make it possible for people like Tim in Mount Vernon, Missouri to continue to live.
It's really no more complicated than that.
That's an amazing thing.
I've often been amazed.
People that diagnosed with cancer, they just amazing them.
They just accept it.
You have to, but some people you would think they would crumble.
Um most of the people that that I've known, probably the same case with you.
They they gut it up and then they start trying to figure what they have to do.
And again, that's that's another reason why what you do is so important.
But the donations that you've made over the course of the years have expanded people's options and their their survivability into livability for all of these blood cancers.
And I guarantee you, every one of them out there that has this disease that listening today has profound appreciation for all of you in this audience who've made it possible for them to deal with this.
Andrew in Flemington, New Jersey, welcome to the program, sir.
Open line Friday.
Hello.
Well, thank you for taking my call.
You bet, sir.
I would like to propose a solution to the affordable health care law.
I think what we should do is bring in one person from every state, sit them down in a room, ask them a very simple question.
What are the problems with the health care industry, and what are your solutions?
The 50 people we bring in, zero lawyers, zero lobbyists, zero politicians.
We should bring in fifteen nurses.
Nurses are the backbone in the healthcare profession.
They know this stuff inside and out, they know the problems and the solutions.
Yeah, we've heard from the nurses on this.
Pardon me.
Well, what do you think they would say?
You got an idea?
What would you say to fix it?
Well, I I don't pretend to know the health care system.
I mean, I think we should rely on the people that do know it and not the politicians.
The pret topic the politicians pretend that they know the inner workings of the health care profession.
You know, I think that isn't it amazing.
They also claim to know the oil business better than the people run that.
They also know the energy business better than people that run that.
They know the weather and the climate business better than the people in that business.
Oh, absolutely.
And they're an expert on whatever you want to ask them about.
We should actually rely on the nurses.
They know this stuff.
Well, I I agree.
The professionals in the business, people that run the hospitals, people that run uh doctor's offices, doctors' nurses, and so forth.
Uh but but Obama co-opted Obama co-opted great numbers of those people in the process of selling this.
It was a great lure to be tapped by the president to help him advance his health care reform act.
And a lot of people thought that it was actually going to be good health care reform.
And there's this giant lure to being so close to power.
And being tapped by the president.
Be able to go to the Rose Garden, stand behind him in your official white doctor coat.
And that picture alone sent the signal to a lot of people that this was good and okay.
But I think Obama knows more than any of these nurses, and this new Health and Human Services Secretary, she does too.
That's that's what we are supposed to believe.
Uh Andrew, I thank you for the call.
We got to take a brief time out.
There's much more.
It's open line Friday, and we be right back.
Meeting and surpassing all audience expectations every day.
L. Rushbow here on Open Line Friday, our twenty-fourth annual Curathon for Leukemia and Lymphoma.
All you have to do to keep the tradition alive is call 877-379-888 or online at rushlimbaugh.com.
Findly leukemia lymphoma curathon click button there, and you're off and running.
Here is Joanne in Eldridge, Iowa.
Great to have you.
Thank you for waving.
Hello.
Hi, Rush.
I just wanted to let you know that I bought your book for my kids.
I knew they would hear the truth.
And I they've kept talking about it, so I thought, well, I'll I'll read it too.
Well, how old are your kids?
Okay, my kids are twelve and thirteen.
Perfect.
Right, right in the target zone.
And uh uh you and I are about the same age.
Okay.
Uh my kids are adopted.
Okay.
And they kept talking about this book.
So I thought, well, what the heck I'll read it too, but I always figured I had a pretty good sound education and didn't think I would actually learn anything.
I know.
You figure it's a book for kids.
What are you gonna do?
Right.
Yeah, right.
And I was shocked when I read that they had started out their community um with uh everyone owning everything.
Yeah.
Everybody being the same.
Yeah, they don't tell you that the the original Plymouth Coloss Colony failed as a socialist enterprise.
Right.
And it just brought chills because I had just wrote a book for my kids, and uh that was something that I included in it.
Well, you know, I wasn't taught that either.
I w I I didn't learn that until I started uh researching in the in the early nineties for something else I was doing.
I didn't learn the real truth of the story of Thanksgiving until you know I'm 40.
I didn't learn uh until I was forty.
I didn't learn about the original Plymouth colony failing as a socialist enterprise until I was in my forties.
I wasn't taught that either.
But it's so hard now to to get a book for the kids that they can they can understand and that is.
No, it's not hard now.
Since I have written to it's easy.
Rush revealing the brain.
Well, that's about how long it took me to record the audio versions.
Yeah, and they're not.
But the kids just they they kept talking about it, and uh like I said, when I wrote my book, I thought, well, doc on it, you know.
That I mean, I had no idea that that was that was in there, and it was something that I wanted my children.
You've mentioned twice that you wrote your book.
Are you a famous author?
Oh heavens no.
Oh.
No, I just wrote uh I wrote a book and published it for m the kids, my kids, and the families, because they weren't I didn't like what they were learning.
Right.
And I wanted to make sure and just put it in.
Amen.
That is why I wrote these and am writing these.
And do you have one or two?
Which you have both cop both books or just the first one?
Oh, both.
And the well, the first one I'm going to give to the to my daughter's grade school.
She'll she'll go into junior high next year.
And they've both read it, and so I'm going to go ahead.
And her teacher expressed interest in it.
Oh.
And uh, well, I'll just go ahead and get it.
Okay, I'll tell you what I'm going to do then.
I want you to hold on because I'll I'll send you a replacement copy that I will sign to you, and I'll send you another, a new version of the second book, Rush Revere and the First Patriots, and I'll send you audio versions of both, which is me reading the book.
Your kids probably will enjoy experiencing the books that way too after they've read them.
Um, because I do it really good, if I say so myself.
But I'm gratified.
This is great.
And I I you're right.
I'm I didn't know a lot of I wasn't taught a lot of things that were truthful about the founding of the country and the pilgrims and all that.
Boston Tea Party, the second book.
So, Joanne, thank you.
Hang on while Mr. Snerdley gets your address so we can uh get this stuff out as soon as we can.
It is a 24th annual leukemia lymphoma society Curaton for 24 years here.
And same phone number for I don't know how many years, 877, it's toll-free, 877-379-8888, or rushlimbaugh.com.
What is the leukemia lymphoma society?
Why does that matter?
They are the largest voluntary nonprofit health organization dedicated to finding and funding blood cancer research and providing education and patient services.
Mm-hmm.
Patient services.
Education and patient services, not just research and development.
Now, since 1949, Leukemia Lymphoma Society has been working on finding cures for blood cancers.
And in addition to funding research, they have also spent over 120 million dollars in copay assistance to qualifying families with financial difficulties.
They are acutely that's where your donations come into play, folks.
One of the many areas that calling 877-379-888 pays off.
They are acutely aware of what families battling this type of disease are going through.
The people have been touched by these diseases.
Everybody, practically everybody at the society, has been touched by this disease, either personally or through a loved one.
And I've known them for 24 years.
Their commitment is intense and it's year-round.
They never stop in the labs.
They never stop in the field.
And they're more fired up every time I see them because there's always progress.
They're always learning, gaining ground.
You would be too, given the progress that's taken place.
They've been at it since 1949.
Huge advances have come about in just the last 10 or 12 years.
Scientific breakthroughs, increased survivability, in some cases, even cures.
It's unimaginable.
Like a a dream come true in many ways.
Blood cancer patients, they're not just surviving anymore, they're living.
And I have seen it.
Leukemia Lymphoma Society of America.
And you can make their work continue.
877-379-8888 is the number, or rushlimbaugh.com.
Look at this.
You know, I must be the only guy that said anything, not glowingly overwhelmingly supportive of Colbert.
I must be the only guy, because I'm all over the media as the malcontent.
As uh just amazing.
And it's it's everybody's sheep.
We're gonna be higher cold.
Oh, what a great oh, what a great guy.
Oh.
Once again, ladies and gentlemen.
Surviving here and proving independence of thought each and every day.
While everybody else just follows the sheep.
Again, 877-379-8888.
That's the phone number to donate to the Leukemia Luci uh Leukemia Lymphoma Society of America Curaton today, Rush Limbaugh.com.
Donations of 75 to 99 dollars.
You get a great Rush Limbaugh t-shirt, 100 to 374 dollars a golf cap.
Stitched EIB logo in my signature and the t-shirt.
And for $375 and up, a sized golf shirt in small to double X, along with a golf cap and the t shirt.
877 379 8888.
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