{"id":10962,"date":"2013-11-04T17:48:45","date_gmt":"2013-11-04T17:48:45","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2013-11-04T17:48:45","modified_gmt":"2013-11-04T17:48:45","slug":"the_obamacare_death_panels_have_arrived","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2013\/11\/04\/the_obamacare_death_panels_have_arrived\/","title":{"rendered":"The Obamacare Death Panels Have Arrived"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Listen<\/a><\/p>\n

RUSH: Haven\u2019t we been told, ladies and gentlemen, for years that Obamacare is literally a matter of life and death? It was. And yet it wasn\u2019t important enough to even test the website, not even once. It wasn\u2019t important enough to make sure they got it right. Isn\u2019t that peculiar?<\/p>\n

I mentioned<\/a> Rahm Emanuel\u2019s brother, Ezekiel Emanuel. He was on Fox News Sunday yesterday. He said the individual insurance market is going away. Meaning, it\u2019s okay that Obamacare has made it impossible for insurance companies to continue to provide coverage for individuals, \u2019cause they\u2019re drying up anyway. But that\u2019s not true. They\u2019re just now in their old CYA mode. “It\u2019s all drying up anyway. The fact that you can\u2019t find insurance, that\u2019s not a big deal. It was part of the plan.” But think about what he\u2019s saying.<\/p>\n

Obamacare was supposed to get people who don\u2019t have insurance to sign up for it. That, in fact, is why the evil insurance companies all bought into it, \u2019cause they saw a mandate out there that 30 million people who didn\u2019t have insurance were gonna have to go get it, and pay for it. Somebody was gonna pay for it. That\u2019s how the insurance companies got roped in. Obama promised \u2019em, “I\u2019m gonna make sure the uninsured get insured, they\u2019re gonna pay for it,” and it\u2019s become a federal mandate. So the evil insurance companies signed on to it, and that\u2019s what Obamacare was largely supposed to do, insure the uninsured.<\/p>\n

Well, if you don\u2019t have insurance right now, what that means is in more cases than not that you don\u2019t have an employer plan. And what that means is, you have to get an individual plan. So what is Obamacare doing? It\u2019s destroying the only kind of plans people without insurance ever get. And nobody seems to be noticing except the people who are being canceled and then can\u2019t find a replacement because it\u2019s too expensive.<\/line><\/p>\n

Now, all of this is by design, but it\u2019s a disaster, and they\u2019re trying to blame all of this, they\u2019re trying to slough all of this off on the insurance companies. So let me just set it up here again, so there\u2019s no mistake about this. Zeke Emanuel on Fox News says, “Individual insurance market\u2019s going away,” as if that\u2019s okay. It\u2019s okay, because Obamacare\u2019s made it impossible for insurance companies to continue to provide coverage for individuals, drying up anyway. But that isn\u2019t happening. That\u2019s the only option people have when they don\u2019t have insurance via their employer. And there are 90 million Americans that are not working.<\/p>\n

Ninety million that are not working, and over there is the individual mandate that requires them to get insurance. However, over there is a little piece of the law that says the IRS can\u2019t collect money unless you have a refund coming. So there really isn\u2019t a mandate, but they don\u2019t want anybody to know that. So the bottom line is, folks, if you don\u2019t have insurance, it means you don\u2019t have an employer plan. If you\u2019re without insurance right now, that\u2019s what it means. So the only option you have is an individual plan, and that\u2019s what people are encountering.<\/p>\n

All of these horrors stories of peoples going up and deductibles going up, out of pocket going up. Those are individuals trying to follow the law, and they are finding that they can\u2019t afford it, because Obamacare is destroying the individual insurance market, not the evil insurance companies. They simply are complying with the law as well. An example. Wall Street Journal by Edie Littlefield Sundby. “You Also Can\u2019t Keep Your Doctor.” And this tells the story. And, by the way, do you know what this story is? This is the story that Sarah Palin told us all those months ago about death panels, and people laughed. People started insulting her, laughing at her, impugning her. People started saying, “There she goes again. This absolute lunatic broad doesn\u2019t know what she\u2019s talking about.” And she nailed it.<\/p>\n

If this isn\u2019t a quasi-death panel, I don\u2019t know what is. This article is a gut punch to Obamacare. “I had great cancer doctors and health insurance. My plan was cancelled. Now I worry how long I\u2019ll live,” by Edie Littlefield Sundby. “Everyone now is clamoring about Affordable Care Act winners and losers. I am one of the losers.<\/p>\n

“My grievance is not political; all my energies are directed to enjoying life and staying alive, and I have no time for politics. For almost seven years I have fought and survived stage-4 gallbladder cancer, with a five-year survival rate of less than 2% after diagnosis. I am a determined fighter and extremely lucky. But this luck may have just run out: My affordable, lifesaving medical insurance policy has been canceled effective Dec. 31.<\/p>\n

“My choice is to get coverage through the government health exchange and lose access to my cancer doctors, or pay much more for insurance outside the exchange (the quotes average 40% to 50% more) for the privilege of starting over with an unfamiliar insurance company and impaired benefits. Countless hours –” and this, by the way, this describes so many people. “Countless hours searching for non-exchange plans have uncovered nothing that compares well with my existing coverage. But the greatest source of frustration is Covered California, the state\u2019s Affordable Care Act health-insurance exchange and, by some reports, one of the best such exchanges in the country. After four weeks of researching plans on the website, talking directly to government exchange counselors, insurance companies and medical providers, my insurance broker and I are as confused as ever. Time is running out and we still don\u2019t have a clue how to best proceed.”<\/p>\n

She says that her grievance isn\u2019t political. It is. She just doesn\u2019t know it. That\u2019s another story, though, and I will leave it aside for the moment.<\/p>\n

“Two things have been essential in my fight to survive stage-4 cancer. The first are doctors and health teams in California and Texas: at the medical center of the University of California, San Diego, and its Moores Cancer Center; Stanford University\u2019s Cancer Institute; and the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. The second element essential to my fight is a United Healthcare PPO (preferred provider organization) health-insurance policy.<\/p>\n

“Since March 2007 United Healthcare has paid $1.2 million to help keep me alive, and it has never once questioned any treatment or procedure recommended by my medical team. The company pays a fair price to the doctors and hospitals, on time, and is responsive to the emergency treatment requirements of late-stage cancer. Its caring people in the claims office have been readily available to talk to me and my providers. But in January, United Healthcare sent me a letter announcing that they were pulling out of the individual California market. The company suggested I look to Covered California starting in October.”<\/p>\n

What were we just talking about? Ezekiel Emanuel on Fox yesterday said (paraphrasing), “Well, individual market, no big deal, drying up, insurance companies.” It is drying up, and it\u2019s leaving people like Edie Sundby with nothing.<\/p>\n

“The company suggested I look to Covered California starting in October. You would think it would be simple to find a health-exchange plan that allows me, living in San Diego, to continue to see my primary oncologist at Stanford University and my primary care doctors at the University of California, San Diego. Not so. UCSD has agreed to accept only one Covered California plan — a very restrictive Anthem EPO Plan. EPO stands for exclusive provider organization, which means the plan has a small network of doctors and facilities and no out-of-network coverage.”<\/p>\n

We talked about this last week. You go to the Cleveland Clinic, and if one doctor there is out-of-network, meaning not covered by Obamacare, you could end up going bankrupt. And this is what Edie Littlefield Sundby found out. “Anthem EPO, exclusive provider organization, which means the plan has a small network of doctors and facilities and no out-of-network coverage.” So the doctors and everybody that she was using to treat her stage-4 gallbladder cancer are not in this network. She doesn\u2019t get to keep her plan. She doesn\u2019t get to keep her doctors.<\/p>\n

She says, “So if I go with a health-exchange plan, I must choose between Stanford and UCSD. Stanford has kept me alive — but UCSD has provided emergency and local treatment support during wretched periods of this disease, and it is where my primary-care doctors are. Before the Affordable Care Act, health-insurance policies could not be sold across state lines; now policies sold on the Affordable Care Act exchanges may not be offered across county lines.”<\/p>\n

Did you know that? Before Obamacare, “health-insurance policies could not be sold across state lines; now policies sold on the Affordable Care Act exchanges may not be offered across county lines.” Well, Stanford and San Diego are not in the same county in California. Then she writes, “What happened to the president\u2019s promise, ‘You can keep your health plan\u2019? Or to the promise that ‘You can keep your doctor\u2019? Thanks to the law, I have been forced to give up a world-class health plan. The exchange would force me to give up a world-class physician. For a cancer patient, medical coverage is a matter of life and death. Take away people\u2019s ability to control their medical-coverage choices and they may die. I guess that\u2019s a highly effective way to control medical costs. Perhaps that\u2019s the point.”<\/p>\n

Hello, Sarah Palin!<\/p>\n

Hello, death panels!<\/p>\n

And may I make one more point here, folks? Yes, I can, because this is my show. I want to take you back (I don\u2019t need the audio, Cookie) to that ABC primetime special. A woman stood up — I\u2019ve never forgotten this, and I never will — and asked the president of the United States if her 93-year-old mother could get a pacemaker because of her will to live, her spirit. Obama said, “Nah, we can\u2019t calculate spirit and will to live into these kinds of decisions.<\/p>\n

“At some point we\u2019re all gonna have to realize that maybe the answer is give them a pain pill and forgo any more surgery and just ease them for the rest of their lives.” And that\u2019s what Edie Sundby is facing. She may as well have been told that. She can\u2019t keep her doctor, a specialized oncologist. She\u2019s faced stage-four gallbladder cancer, and can\u2019t keep her insurance, all because of Obamacare.<\/p>\n