RUSH: Dave in Chicago nice to have you, sir, welcome to the EIB Network I’m glad you waited.
CALLER: Thank you, Rush, for taking my call.
RUSH: Yes, sir.
CALLER: I am a physician and I practice geriatric medicine and I wanted to make a comment on this-every-five-year conversation on advanced care planning. First of all, I’ll say that I hope this health care reform bill does not pass. In fact, I’d love to get rid of Medicare altogether. But I think this-every-five-year discussion is actually a good idea. It’s something that I do with my patients often, have discussions about who their health care power of attorney should be, their advanced care plan, but I cannot reimburse Medicare for doing that. Medicare won’t pay me for that, and so this is actually one piece of the legislation I think is a good idea.
RUSH: Well, if you think it’s a good idea, and you want to have death care discussion with your patients and they wish to consent to death care discussions with you, then that’s fine. If you want to run your practice that way and your patients are cool with it. But I will be damned if it’s going to be become federally mandated law that the government hires a bunch of counselors that has these death care — as you call it, death care — discussions, ‘end-of-life discussions.’ Really what those discussions are, when you call it ‘death care’ or ‘end of life,’ it’s ‘end of care.’ That’s what the counselors are preparing these people for: end of care, ’cause they’re getting old and it isn’t going to be worth of investment. It’s right in the House bill!
People to want try to deny all these things that are right there. People have read it. They’re in the bill. And we’ve got President Obama on tape, on that ABC infomercial a hundred-year-old lady who wants a pacemaker. One doctor said, ‘No, no, we can’t do that for you. It doesn’t make any sense.’ Another specialist said, ‘Yeah, you got a lot of spirit. I think we should give you the pacemaker.’ The woman got the pacemaker. Five years later she’s 105, still productive. The woman’s mother asked the president of the United States, would he be willing to judge the spirit and will to live on the part of the patient? He said, no, no, no. You reach a point where it just makes more sense to give a pain pill.
The operation is a little bit more complicated, and you should just give them a pain pill. Now, the Obama White House is doing their best to erase that from the historical record, but he said it and it’s there. So whatever you hear about this discussion of end-of-life counseling or, as Dave here from Chicago is referring to it as ‘death care.’ It’s end of care. That’s what they’re going to be talking to you about. At what point are they going to say to you to you, ‘It’s simple. We’re gotta stop caring for you because it’s going to be hopeless. It ain’t going to make any sense.’ Now, if the doctor wants to do that, fine! You go get another doctor who won’t. But when the federal government is mandating that this be done? Sorry, folks, not in the United States of America.
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RUSH: Stan in Orlando, Florida, hello, sir, great to have you on the EIB Network.
CALLER: Oh, good afternoon, Rush.
RUSH: Hi.
CALLER: And thank you very much.
RUSH: You bet, sir.
CALLER: Hey listen, I like the sped-up voices. Kind of reminds me of Mickey Mouse. But I had a question for you if I could.
RUSH: Sure.
CALLER: I’m under Obamacare, let’s say, and I’m an old guy that needs the pacemaker and gets the handful of pills instead because I get disapproved for the pacemaker, who does the family sue after I’m dead and gone from the handful of pills that was given instead?
RUSH: Well, I’ll have to research this specifically, but citizens cannot sue per se the federal government over a lot of things because that’s all —
CALLER: Yeah, you have to have their permission.
RUSH: Yeah. So in this case, since the Obama administration will be the insurance company, they’ll be providing you the doctor, and the doctor will have the guidelines. Obama said, look, we’re going to judge your quality of care, we’re going to have a list of what works and what doesn’t. If you come in as an old guy and you want your pacemaker and they give you a bunch of pills, I think you’re stuck.
CALLER: I think so, too, and that was kind of the point of my whole question.
RUSH: The only caveat to this is, and I’m a reasonably bright guy, and I know that this health care bill is not going to eliminate suing doctors, because that’s how a lot of tort lawyers make their money. And there’s no way, there’s no way anything Obama or the Democrats do is going to take money out of the trial lawyers’ pockets, so I imagine you will be able to but to and find a lawyer and sue somebody.
CALLER: Well, it wouldn’t be the doctor, Rush, because he’s the one that recommended the pacemaker and it would be some government official somewhere that said, ‘Nah, you can’t have that, give him these pills instead,’ and so it’s some government person somewhere and good luck suing the government. I mean us people out here in the real world don’t have the kind of money to even pursue something like that.
RUSH: Well, you know, you raise a good point. I’m going to have to consult the legal beagles. In that case it may only be private doctors, the doctors who choose not to join any of these insurance plans, public or otherwise. They adjust their fee for performance, cash only, well, take credit cards. If you have a patient pay the doctor and your doctor tells you, ‘Well, you want a pacemaker, no. I want to prescribe you some pain pills,’ you might be able to sue that guy, you might be able to sue a doctor who opts out.
CALLER: Yeah, but see I would be under Obamacare, and like you said, I think I’d be out of luck.
RUSH: That is interesting. I’m going to have to run this by people who have a more informed foundation of this whole concept. It’s a great, great question because — I mean simple common sense. We know that no plan is going to ace out the trial lawyers. We know that most plans are going to empower them and enrich them. So the question is how that’s going to happen. I’m sure by the time I end this segment and look to my computer, three or four of my legal beagles will have sent me e-mails starting, ‘I can’t believe you missed this.’ So I’ll have that answer for you before the show is over, I’m sure.
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RUSH: Margaret in Whittier, California, nice to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hello, Rush. Nice to speak with you.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: I’m curious. Do you believe that there will be a form that needs to be filled out with our party affiliation to deny us health care as we become older, if we are Republican?
RUSH: No. Well, wait, wait a second, wait a second. The reason I said no instinctively is because I think something larger than even that is at work. I’ve had calls from other people who are just as afraid of this regardless of age. When the government’s in charge of this and you got nowhere else you can go, if you haven’t donated to Obama, do you get moved down the list? If you’re registered Republican, do you get moved down the list? If you registered Democrat, does it move you up the list? I think what’s really going on with seasoned citizens, Margaret, as I look at this, and I’m just listening to what I’ve heard and reading what I’ve read. And, remember, Obama’s answer to the woman with the hundred-year-old mother who wanted a pacemaker, ‘No, let’s just give her pain pills.’ Then you look at the bill with the end-of-care counseling and so forth. I think Obama, even though they’re all being very wide open about this, I think there’s still a lot of stealth. And they’re using the fact that they want to ration treatment to elderly people on the basis we’ve gotta do something to save money. But they save money two ways when elderly people die. One, you don’t get health care anymore but also you are no longer on the Social Security rolls. So I think if you want to look at yourself as perhaps being discriminated against, it’s that you’re elderly first and then maybe Republican second, and so forth, third and what have you.
CALLER: Well, they will make sure one way or another the health care will be denied, correct?
RUSH: Yeah. You can’t get health care if you have passed away. Now, Social Security, when you pass away, if you have a survivor there may be some residuals. But you can’t get any if you pass away, and you won’t be able to get it if you get close to passing away; it’s going to cost a lot of money to keep you alive. If you are a Democrat, though, you will still have the right to vote after you die.
CALLER: Well, this is true.
RUSH: Well, that we know.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: They found in Chicago just the other day a grave with bodies stacked on top of each other, and any time you go to a cemetery in Chicago you count ’em as voters.
CALLER: Didn’t Johnson do that? Didn’t he have the cemeteries vote in Texas?
RUSH: Oh, yeah, this is a Democrat tactic from long ago, but it has really been perfected by the Daleys in Chicago. So that’s one caveat to seniors who will pass away at some point. You will still be voting. You may not know how. Well, you won’t know how. And where you’re going, you won’t care anymore. But you will still be voting. There’s a lot to look forward to in this. The Democrats are looking out for you. They care about you and your future demise, wherever it is.