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May 19, 2014 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:48
May 19, 2014, Monday, Hour #2
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By the way, one clarification in his Financial Times article, they said that the top VA honcho, Dr. Petzel, was forced out.
He wasn't forced out.
The top head honcho there was not forced out of the VA by the brave and courageous Eric Shinseki.
Petzel was already planning to retire this year, and his replacement had already been named.
So that is a bunch of smoke and mirrors, too.
They make it look like they're really getting tough.
That's right.
Obama was so mad.
What happened to VA?
He's so mad.
Nobody told him.
And when he found out about it, he demanded that heads roll.
And so Shinseki got the message.
And he went over there and he told a top guy, you're gone.
And that was the story, except the top guy had already resigned.
He was planning to retire at the end of the year.
They already had named his replacement before Shinseki reported to the media that some head was rolling.
Ironically, it is a variation of what we talked about last week with Shinseki.
We had John Kerry, who you may not know.
John Kerry served in Vietnam.
John Kerry and other leftists in 2003 and 2004 said that Bush had forced Shinseki out as the chief of staff of the army because Shinseki had publicly said that Bush's policy had no chance.
Shinseki had said, well, we need hundreds of thousands, multiple hundreds of thousands of troops to pull this off, this invasion of Iraq.
And the max number we had at one time was 170,000.
And so Shinseki became their go-to because Shinseki became their hero.
He was the martyr.
He was the guy speaking truth to power.
He was the guy that stood up and said Bush was lying and all that.
So they just, they embraced Shinseki.
Shinseki announced he was leaving in 2002.
But they made it look like that mean Bush had fired somebody who spoke up courageously and bravely against the administration.
Just like they're trying to say that Dr. Petzel was forced out at the VA when he wasn't.
He had already announced his retirement.
His replacement had already been named.
But you have to come up with a scapegoat.
If you're going to spread this business that, boy, Obama, boy, was he mad.
Oh, you know, who's going to tell Obama how this went?
Remember when Van Jones was finally summarily dispatched because they found he's a communist?
Remember, gosh, how did Obama hire this guy?
How did he get past Obama?
Who lied to him?
How did Obama not know?
Obama knew.
That's the point.
The reason why Van Jones is in there is because exactly who he was.
Obama wanted him in there.
But country's not ready for admitted avowed communist takeover of the country yet.
Well, I don't think even now.
I think even more so now.
But nevertheless.
But having a scapegoat coming up with a phony scapegoat who is already out the door anyway is another typical Obama stunt.
So in truth, when it comes to the VA, Obama hasn't done anything.
Not one head has rolled.
Not one person's been punished here, folks.
40 veterans died in what is, to many people, modern embodiment of the death panel.
He had 40 veterans on a special waiting list, and the government workers that pared that list down got a bonus for making the list shorter.
How'd the list get shorter?
Fewer people on it.
How'd that happen?
They died.
So there hasn't been any point is that no heads have rolled.
Obama didn't fire anybody.
It was already out the door.
But it's a stunt, and it's the same stunt they're going to do with the IRS people.
Same thing.
They're going to make it look like they're letting a lot of people go, but they're probably already announced as vanishing.
On May 1st, the White House announced that Obama planned to nominate Jeffrey Moroski for the position to head the VA on May 1st.
They just don't think we can go back and find this.
See, you're supposed to conclude: wow, is this Obama guy a man of action?
When he finds out this kind of stuff's going on, he doesn't waste any time.
He just lops a guy's head off and sends him packing.
It proves he's mad.
It proves he was upset.
It proves he didn't know what was going on.
And it proves that people are going to be held accountable in the regime.
Except it's all a lie.
May 1st, the White House announced that Obama planned to nominate Jeffrey Moroski.
The way it'll be happening now, wait till Obama finds out the White House announced this back in May without telling him.
Wait till Obama finds out.
Wait till Obama finds out who it was that named this guy's replacement back in May without telling Obama.
You talk about going rogue.
Well, that's another head that's going to have to roll.
How in the world could they announce a replacement for somebody and not tell Obama about it?
That's the what sounds ridiculous?
Well, doesn't the rest of this sound ridiculous?
Boy, you wouldn't believe how mad Obama is.
Oh, oh, oh, you didn't want to be there when Obama found out those 40 guys.
Oh, oh, oh.
Oh, and you want to be the one that had to tell him?
Oh, gee, you don't want to go there.
Standard operating procedure.
From the Dayton Daily News yesterday, delay in treatment a factor in more than 100 deaths at VA centers, not 40.
What?
I know.
First, it's 40, and now the Dayton, Ohio Daily News reported yesterday that a delay, the delay in treatment, a factor in more than 100 deaths at VA centers from the article, as controversy, as they say in the UK, as controversy swirls around the Veterans Administration over deaths caused by delayed care,
an investigation by the Dayton Daily News found that the VA settled many cases that appear to be related to delays in treatment.
A database of paid claims by the VA since 2001 includes 167 in which the words delay in treatment is used in the description.
Now, why the delay?
They had to know that the treatment was being delayed.
This is the death panel.
This is what our previous caller thinks is evidence of the death panel in action.
And the VA is single payer.
It's a microcosm of where we're all headed should Obamacare be fully implemented.
And about that, there can be no disagreement.
But now it's 40, or it was 40, now it's 100, over 100 deaths.
Well, can you imagine how bad it was when they had to tell Obama about 40, and now they're probably going to draw straws to see you has to go in and tell him that it's now 100.
Would you want that job?
Man.
And then when he learns that it isn't 40, that it's over 100.
Can you imagine how outraged he's going to be?
Oh, oh.
Might actually scream at somebody.
I might have been called Pinch.
Said, look, I got to do to some people what you did to Jill.
What do I do?
Can you believe?
Yes, I can.
I mean, the media won't let that go.
I mean, that just fits too many memes.
War on women, except it's all libs doing it, but they still can't let it go because they're such narcissists.
Everything is about them.
This babe went out.
She made a commencement speech yesterday somewhere.
Some university some.
Oh, it's today.
It was this morning.
Wake Forest.
Yeah, she talked about how she's not going to remove her tattoo on her back.
She has the Times logo tattooed on her back, the T.
And she said in her commencement address that she's not going to have it removed.
Yes, you heard right.
And we have more details on that.
I think we've even got some sound bites of it.
We'll get to it at some point.
Do you know what the minimum wage in Switzerland is?
Anybody in there going to take a guess with minimum wage in Switzerland?
There isn't one.
No, no.
Zero.
There is no minimum wage.
Now, this is an interesting question.
How in the world is anybody employed without a minimum wage?
How does anybody live without a minimum wage?
How in the world can it be possible?
I mean, no minimum wage?
How do people live?
So they just had a referendum to establish a minimum wage of $25 an hour.
And many people thought, well, that's a slam dunk because it's Switzerland.
It bombed.
The vast majority of voters in Switzerland rejected a $25 minimum wage in a national referendum.
Switzerland, you may not know this because they've got this big neutrality thing going.
I don't choose sides.
Switzerland is totally free market.
Switzerland, the majority, rules, as in democracy.
They do not meddle in global affairs under the guise of humanitarian, liberating, democracy spreading.
They don't do any of that.
They just, in other words, as zero hedge rights, if you want a country that respects free markets, believes in listening to the voice of the majority, and is against meddling in global affairs, move to Switzerland.
If you want a country controlled by a few academic central planners with no real world experience in which the executive usurps power, issuing one executive order after another with zero checks and balances, and which will incite a global war if it must with the help of doctored YouTube clips in order to achieve its global national interest, then move practically anywhere else.
Six months ago, it was this same Switzerland that contrary to the prerogatives of the pervasive fairness doctrine, taking the new socialist world by storm, Switzerland rejected imposing limits on executive pay.
Then, in a move that would give President Obama wealth redistribution nightmares for months, 77% of Swiss voters rejected an initiative for a national minimum wage of just under $25 an hour, confirming that when it comes to anti-socialism, Switzerland may well be the last bastion.
How dare Switzerland not pretend that supply and demand doesn't matter and that one can circumvent the laws of common sense and enforce employment and wages by diktat.
Simple.
Government ministers have fought against the minimum wage for years.
They insisted the minimum wage would damage the economy, would run small companies out of business, and would make it harder for young people to find jobs.
Economic minister Johan Schneider-Ahmann told the Christian Science Monitor, a minimum wage will not stop poverty.
This system would be counterproductive for Switzerland.
Switzerland currently has no minimum wage, but you know what the median hourly wage is in Switzerland?
Median, meaning there are as many above it as $37 an hour.
Median wage 30 cents.
Now, remember, they don't have a defense department.
They're neutral.
They don't get involved in foreign entanglements.
But they've got no minimum wage.
How did they do it?
How do you do it, Mr. Limbaugh, with no minimum wage?
How do people survive in Switzerland?
How does a family of four survive with no minimum wage?
Well, you see what happens in Switzerland.
If you want to get a job, you have to learn how to do something.
Not just show up.
And then after you get the job, you do have to show up.
But you have to learn to do something.
You have to, if you get a job in Switzerland, you are essentially agreeing that you're going to work.
It is a great concept.
It is a great concept worth emulating.
Yeah, I don't know.
We'll have to find the guy that came up with this.
But I'm going to, this, can you imagine how mad Obama is going to get when he finds out that Switzerland voted down by 77% a minimum wage of anything $25 an hour?
And then when he learns there isn't a minimum wage, would you want to be the person who has to tell him that?
Washington Post headline, federal health care subsidies may be too high for more than 1 million Americans.
A government may be paying incorrect subsidies to more than 1 million Americans for their health plans in the new federal insurance marketplace.
And they've been unable so far to fix the mistakes, according to internal documents and the three people familiar with the situation.
Wait till Obama finds out about this one.
Wait till Obama finds out that a lot of people are being subsidized much more than they are owed according to the plan.
Wait till they find out.
Wait till they have to go tell him only three people knew about this.
That means Obama didn't know that people were being subsidized unfairly, getting more than they should.
The government says here in the Washington Post has identified these discrepancies, but they're stuck at the moment because under federal rules, consumers are notified that there's a problem with their application.
They're asked to upload or mail in pay stubs or other proof of their income.
But only a fraction of people have done that.
And even when they have, the federal computer system at the heart of the insurance marketplace can't match this proof with the application because that capability is yet to be built.
This is incredible.
We're over-subsidizing over a million people.
And even when people send in proof of what they're, it can't be matched up.
And they have three years to build this website.
And once again, a blatant demonstration of the rampant total incompetence of this administration to run anything.
But they're trying, and they really want people to get subsidized, right?
They want to have people have health care.
They really care.
At least they're trying.
And that's how they get through all this.
The unemployment rate in Switzerland with no minimum wage is 3.2%.
Now, the regime is eventually going to get this money back, people, that it's overpaying right now and these subsidies.
Well, wasn't it just in the last two weeks we learned that people whose relatives, grandparents, for example, got more Social Security benefits than they should have?
Government just took some money away from them.
The IRS did it.
I think they either took it out of the refund or something.
30 years ago, this arbitrarily came and said, Yeah, we overpaid your great-grandmother 30 years ago, and we're just taking out of here.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute.
I didn't screw.
Yeah, but your grandmother did.
Same family, so we're taking it from you.
So they'll eventually get around to it.
Big thing is when Obama finds out.
Tom in Huntington Beach, California.
Welcome.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hi, Mr. Lindbaugh.
What a thrill to talk to you.
I don't know if I'm more thrilled to talk to you or Mr. Snerdley.
But anyway, I wanted to congratulate you on your fine children's book and your award.
I think that was just wonderful.
Thank you, sir, very, very much.
I called because I told Mr. Snerdley I signed up for a VA card over two years ago.
And during the last two years, I've called them.
Oh, let me back up.
As you know, before you can get any service from VA, you have to have a primary physician.
So before I left, they told me that my primary physician would call me within three days.
That was well over two years ago.
And I've called about once a month trying to get a primary physician.
I never get a call back.
Wait, wait, wait.
They told you you get a call from a doctor in two days.
You still haven't heard from him?
I still have not heard.
Hang on a second.
I thought I had more time here.
Would I hang on through the break here?
I thought I had an additional minute.
I misread the clock.
As usual, my friends, half my brain tied behind my back, just to make it fair, back to Tom in Huntington Beach, California.
I just want to make sure that what I heard you say to Mr. Snerdley is true.
That you signed up for the VA.
They told you you would get a call back for a primary position within a couple of days.
That was two years ago.
Over two years ago.
Over two years.
Have they called you yet?
Very interestingly, just after all this VA business broke, on the 13th, I got a call from the VA Center here in Long Beach and asked me if I wanted a primary physician, if I still wanted a primary physician.
You know, I've heard of people who have signed up with Obamacare and a similar situation.
They still don't have a card to prove that they have insurance.
Should have arrived months ago.
I have the card.
Okay, you've got the card.
Yes, but they found out that the doctor they wanted to use isn't in their network, so he essentially doesn't exist.
But in your case, they promised you a callback in two days and over two years.
And still, if you want one, so what are they assuming that in the two years since you originally asked for a doctor, you've seen somebody and you've gotten better.
Or I died.
Or that you died.
Right.
You really think they were calling to see if you died?
No, they're actually calling to ask me if I still wanted a primary physician.
Well, what'd you tell them?
I told them I did, and I haven't heard yet.
Recycled.
So you're still waiting for the call from your primary doctor.
Yes, sir.
Man.
I would say that anybody who wants to see a disaster go to a VA hospital and they'll back out of Obamacare.
It is a shame what they do to those people there.
Look, there is absolutely no doubt about that.
The VA system.
See, this is kind of what undercuts the whole notion that Obama didn't know and was outraged when he found out is that I'll just, I've been doing this program for 25 years, horror stories in the VA.
We've had phone calls every year about it.
And you see, part and parcel of the VA is the belief.
I don't know if it's actually stated at recruitment, but there is both an implication and an inference.
The government, the military implies to inductees, to volunteers, people that sign up for the military, and they infer that their medical care is going to be heightened and focused because they are volunteering essentially their lives for this country.
In joining the military, they are acknowledging the possibility they could be deployed into a combat zone and be severely wounded or killed in action.
The whole leave no man behind thing, there is an implied relationship that everybody in this country has understood for years, that the government will take care of its veterans.
And because of that implied relationship, when that doesn't happen, the attention on it is even more focused and becomes even greater controversy.
I mean, if there's a group of people, this is the assumption, if there is a group of people the government is really going to look out for and really try to take care of, it's going to be people who have worn the uniform.
Everybody has just understood this, which is why all of these years of the horror stories of the VA have been so shocking.
Because the questions are natural.
How can they let this happen?
These people are special.
These are soldiers.
They're special.
They got wounded in action, killed in action, defending this country on missions assigned by their commander-in-chief and other commanding officers.
And yet that relationship doesn't seem to exist.
The VA, as I say, you get calls here we have every year for 25 years, a horror story here, a horror story there.
And this is just the latest.
Now we learn of these deaths by attrition, secret waiting lists.
And the people that, here's the, this is the real bad thing.
I mean, people on these lists assume that they're being moved ahead of the line.
That's the purpose of the secret list, that they're going to really be taken care of.
Because the backlog is so jammed, the line for treatment at the VA is so long that they've come up with this secret list business.
And the people on that list think that they're essentially being moved to top of the class of the head of the line, in front of the line, and they're just being ignored.
Now, 40 people, over 100 people, if you add the Dayton Daily News story today, over 100 people have died while on these lists.
It's simply unconscionable.
So you have to ask, the natural assumption is that nobody wants these people to die.
Even if you add the death panel component, nobody wants these people, yet they are.
So at the very least, what we're dealing with here is a total inability to deal with this.
And at worst, it's the death panel that's being done on purpose.
But no matter how you come down on this, I mean, some of you are not going to want to believe the death panel aspect, even though the evidence is pretty clear.
When you have government employees receiving salary bonuses for ostensibly saving money by virtue of shrinking the number of people on a list, how does that happen?
How do people end up off the list and not get treated?
They pass away.
And if you're going to have government employees bonused on that basis, then you would be not that far out of whack to assume there might be some death panel at work here.
If you don't want to go that far, at the very least, there is rampant incompetence here, an inability to run the medical treatment of the veterans' affairs system.
Why are you shaking your head?
I'm not.
Snerdley says incompetence doesn't say enough.
I don't care what it says.
It's undeniable that they can't do it, no matter what their intentions.
Well, I'm about worn out with good intentions covering for incompetence, particularly when you have rampant loss of life taking place.
What good does good intentions do anybody here?
But see, this Bring Back Our Girls hashtag.
That's all you have to do to show you care.
You don't have to actually rescue them.
You have to get them back and to do anything.
Just get behind the hashtag of you.
Just show you care.
So these people here, all they go, oh, we care so much about our veterans, not doing anything for them, but we really care about them.
I just, the incompetence is a big thing to me.
It does cover a lot.
And the reason why, Snerdley, you realize how few people are going to believe the death panel thing anyway.
I mean, but yet we still got to find a way to convince people that this Obamacare can't work and that everybody's headed for similar potential as these deaths in the VA.
They just can't do it.
They just can't run it.
There's nobody that has any real-world private sector experience running anything to do with health care or medical treatment or medical care.
They're bureaucrats that came from the top 10% of their class at some Ivy League school or some school somewhere.
They're theoreticians.
They've sat around in the faculty lounge and complained and whined and moaned about all the cheap cheaters and corruption there is in the private sector.
And man, if we ever ran this, we'd straighten it out, we'd fix it, and we'd do it fair.
And here we go.
And the very fact they can't do it.
And here's one minor, small microcosm of all of Obamacare that everybody can see at the least.
There are people dying.
If you don't want to believe the death panels are the reason, then you've got to believe it's incompetence.
But you can't just, well, you know, excrement happens because you could be the excrement next time.
We all strive.
Well, of course they knew there were going to be consequences, but it's a bureaucracy.
One person can't do anything on his own.
Okay, so you see people on a waiting list and they're not getting better and the list is getting longer and they're not getting treatment and you're one person and you want to do something about it.
You can't.
The chain of command, your bosses, the number, the other bureaucracies you have to work through to get something stamped and approved to be grant permission to treat a patient.
It's a mess.
It can't happen.
My point is that we're all struggling.
Well, some of us are not struggling, to some of us it's easy.
But a lot of people are trying to figure out ways to persuade people this isn't going to work, no matter how big anybody's heart is, no matter how much they care.
Here is a microcosm of what Obamacare is going to be if it's fully implemented.
And the reason you want to tell them that is because you want to gin up as much popular support for repeal of this as you can.
The polling numbers on Obamacare continue to worsen.
In fact, the politico headline, politico poll shows mounting danger for Democrat.
President Obama's job approval slump.
And voters' entrenched wariness of Obamacare are dogging Democrats ahead of the 2014 midterm elections.
Republicans have captured a lead in the areas home to the year's most competitive races, according to a new politico poll.
Let me give you a pull quote: Illinois, West Virginia, California still lean in a liberal direction on several issues the Democrats have championed this year, like immigration reform, pay equity for men and women, background checks for gun buyers, all of that.
Happy horse hockey.
You get right down to it.
But none of those issues comes close to approaching health care as a major concern for midterm voters.
Nearly nine in 10 respondents, 90% said Obamacare would be important in determining their vote, including 49% who said to be very important.
That's why we strive to inform and educate people.
On social issues, the poll shows the midterm electorate somewhat more conservative than the country at large.
While the broader population has swung in the direction of favoring same-sex marriage, the issue is a toss-up with midterm voters.
48% of respondents said they support same-sex marriage.
52% said they oppose it.
We're being governed here by a very small minority, and people are fed up with it.
I think people are more fed up with it than anybody knows.
Tell you the truth.
Anyway, who's next?
It's Wendy in Macallan, Texas.
Welcome to the EIB Network.
Great to have you here.
Oh, my gosh.
I am so excited.
I'm very pleased to talk to you.
I've been, let's say, 20-year listener.
So it's a pleasure, sir.
Thank you very much.
Absolutely, Mr. Rush.
I would like to say that my husband is a retired Green Beret when they called him Green Berets, and now Special Ops from the 7th group.
He's a disabled veteran.
And I am just, I'm angry.
And I was thinking about.
Yeah, no, wait, wait.
You ran through that very quickly.
And I want to take this little slow.
It's a Green Beret, which for those of you who know Green Beret, Special Ops is what they're called now.
Yes, sir.
Was what was he SEAL?
Was he?
He was at the 7th group from the U.S. Army.
Okay.
Delta?
Green Beret.
And he's a halo jumper and all the kind of above.
Okay, but now he's disabled.
He is, yes, sir.
And he is disabled, but luckily he does have arms and legs, and he can walk and talk and move and all the above.
I mean, he has some other, you know, what I call internal things that we deal with.
But he is a disabled veteran from Special Ops and Green Beret.
Right.
And he is, you know, I was thinking about some of the things you said, and I think recently you just said you're kind of like worn out, and I am too, of the good intentions to kind of cover for those inadequate services or behavior.
And I'm just tired of inexperienced folks, maybe, that are dealing with the VA and the health issues and the policies.
And they're running those services for our veterans.
They're overwhelmed.
I mean, giving them the benefit of the doubt.
They're overwhelmed.
They can't handle it.
All right.
No matter how much they care, no matter how great their intentions.
Would you say he was told the earliest he'd get an appointment for treatment?
90 days, three months?
Yes, absolutely.
I apologize.
Recently, we have some health fairs here around in Lower Texas, and he went and had some blood drawn, and he had blood drawn.
And the one thing that they told him right away was that his thyroid was very low and that he should do something about it.
And so, of course, immediately he calls to go to, we don't have a hospital here in the lower valley of Texas.
We have to go to San Antonio, which is, you know, like a four and a half hour drive.
But we have some clinics.
But he called and told them what they had told him.
And the wait time was like August, so about 90 days.
Now, is that just for an appointment or is that for the specific treatment that he needs?
That is for an appointment, sir.
I don't know where that happens.
I don't know anybody who calls the doctor and is told three months.
There may be.
I just don't encounter it.
I've never heard of it.
And to let you know, of course, luckily we have other insurance and through my work and those things that, you know, we have gone to another doctor, right?
You know, here locally.
And of course, out of, you know.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the deal, didn't you all think that should something like this happen, the government's going to take care of your husband?
He's a soldier.
Absolutely.
He put in a little over 20 years, and he is a retired veteran, and he is a disabled veteran as well.
Yeah.
Well, look, look, and by the way, look, I know in every group of people, you're going to have some bad apples that try to exploit and take advantage of.
But this is happening with way too much commonality or too frequently.
40 people dying, 100 people dying on a wait list designed to speed up their treatment.
And I know some of you say, Rush, Rush, don't downplay this death panel business.
Hey, we all know it's out there.
I'm just, for the sake of this discussion, we're going to use the benefit of the doubt.
I know the death panel is obviously a factor in certain cases, whether they want to admit it or not.
But even if you take that out, this is just so much incompetence.
It's impossible to calculate.
I mentioned mere moments ago, Trey Gowdy, who is the chairman of the House Select Committee looking at Ibenghazi, had some great questions for the media and for anybody following the story or not, as it were.
And I've got the audio sound bites of his recitation coming up and many other things too.
So we still have a big hour to go.
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