{"id":13112,"date":"2013-02-26T17:40:58","date_gmt":"2013-02-26T17:40:58","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2013-02-26T17:40:58","modified_gmt":"2013-02-26T17:40:58","slug":"assault_on_for_profit_medicine_begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2013\/02\/26\/assault_on_for_profit_medicine_begins\/","title":{"rendered":"Assault on For-Profit Medicine Begins"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

RUSH: There\u2019s an interesting cover story at TIME Magazine. “TIME\u2019s long investigation of American health care prices missed one thing: We pay our doctors way too much.”<\/p>\n

In the current issue of TIME there\u2019s a huge cover story by Steve Brill. It\u2019s 24,000 words, and do you know what he concludes? He concludes that health care is very expensive, the prices are very high, and hospitals charge those high prices for the same reason that any other business would. It\u2019s because they can, and Brill concludes in 24,000 words that Obamacare is not only gonna not help, it\u2019s gonna make it worse.<\/p>\n

Now the latest number is that Obamacare is going to add $6.2 trillion to the national debt. But the point of the Matt Iglesias story is: “We pay our doctors way too much.” Do you remember, it wasn\u2019t long ago, I warned you to be on the lookout for this from somebody on the left? I predicted it wasn\u2019t gonna take much time. “Somebody on the left is going to say, ‘Why should there be profit in health care? Why should doctors get rich simply for making sick people well?<\/p>\n

“‘Why should that cost anybody anything? But especially, why should there be so much profit in treating the sick? Why should there be anybody making loads and loads of money, obscene profits, simply by treating the sick and making them well?'” And, lo and behold, here it is! It\u2019s in TIME Magazine. Slate: “We Pay Our Doctors Way Too Much.” This is an adjunct story to the Steve Brill cover story, the long investigation the American health care system. They looked at prices.<\/line><\/p>\n

This Iglesias story, as I say, is an adjunct because he believes that Brill missed something in his 24,000-word analysis. Iglesias says (paraphrased), “You know, we\u2019re paying our doctors too much. We could really cut costs. We could make health care much less expensive if we just rolled back what we\u2019re paying doctors,” and he gets into it just exactly as I knew they would. Leftists are predictable, folks. Liberals, I know these people. It\u2019s all about morality, fairness, justice, a fair shake, a balanced approach.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s just wrong — it\u2019s just obscene — that any one person should become a multimillionaire simply for treating the sick. That ought to be something somebody would do for nothing. That ought to be something that\u2019s purely humanitarian, but certainly it shouldn\u2019t include massive profit. There is something institutionally wrong with that,” and, by the way, that\u2019s gonna sell. I just want to warn all of you doctors: Now that this thing has got its official imprimatur in TIME magazine, this is gonna take off.<\/p>\n

If you think the low-information voters are not gonna lap this up, I have another thing to tell you and another bridge to sell you. This is gonna take off like wildfire. You\u2019re going to have people going, “Yeah, that\u2019s right! That\u2019s exactly right. Doctors are the reason that health care is so expensive,” and they\u2019re gonna focus on the kind of cars you doctors drive, and they\u2019re gonna focus on your houses and where you live, and they\u2019re gonna focus on the country club memberships that you have.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re gonna focus on the fact that you work four days a week, and they\u2019re gonna focus on the fact that you have all these people in your waiting room and you never get to people on time. They\u2019re gonna focus on the fact that you\u2019ve got these sweetheart relationships with the drug companies. “They come in and they urge you to prescribe this drug or that drug and they pay you under the table,” and then they\u2019re gonna say, “Why should doctors be profiting like this?” and then, “Why should hospitals?”<\/p>\n

And then, “Why should there be any profit at all in medicine? It\u2019s nobody\u2019s fault that they got sick!” That will be the case in this scenario. Now, normally it is your fault if you get sick, because you ate the wrong thing, you behaved the wrong way, you inhaled the wrong thing, you drive the wrong kind of car, whatever. Normally your getting sick is your responsibility but now, for this instance, it won\u2019t be. You\u2019re gonna be the essence of innocence.<\/line><\/p>\n

You\u2019re gonna have been totally taken advantage of by these mean, greedy health care professionals: Doctors, hospitals, insurance companies. It doesn\u2019t matter. Whoever is involved in treating the sick is going to come under this bright light of protest. “Why should there be profit? Why should there be obscene profit? Why should anybody be getting rich treating the sick? It\u2019s not the sick\u2019s fault.”<\/p>\n

Remember, it was Pennsylvania senator Harris Wofford who made the contention that since Constitution guarantees you a lawyer, then the Constitution ought to guarantee you health care. (summarized) “If we will pay for your lawyer when you can\u2019t afford one when you\u2019re accused of a crime, why don\u2019t we pay for your health care?” and it took off. So another prediction here — one about the NFL and now medicine — coming to fruition in a much shorter period of time than I actually thought it would take.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Matt Iglesias in TIME Magazine. Remember now, Steve Brill did a 24,000-word assessment of American health care and Obamacare, and he concluded that it\u2019s too expensive. And, by the way, he\u2019s right about something. It\u2019s expensive because somebody pays for it. But it\u2019s not the patient. Well, ultimately it is, but the patient doesn\u2019t know it. There is no direct relationship between the consumer and the provider in health care. And if there were, you would see prices come down faster than anything else. It\u2019s amazing. You go into the free market, you buy a car. You deal with the dealer. You deal with the salesman. The price is on the sticker. You negotiate, get the best price you can. You walk out of there and you lie to people about what a great deal you got. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

With health care, you don\u2019t do any of that. You have an insurance plan. You might have a copay. Whatever they charge, somebody\u2019s paying. You may be paying a big percentage of it, but it\u2019s out of your hands. B ut if you had to pay for every dime of health care you get, you\u2019d be far more interested in how much it costs, and you would be a more discerning and discreet shopper and there would be competition. And that doesn\u2019t exist. With Obamacare it\u2019s only gonna get worse, and Brill says that. So, anyway, it\u2019s a 24,000-word analysis of American health care in which Brill concludes it\u2019s too expensive. Right, we need 24,000 words for that. <\/p>\n

But another reporter at TIME magazine says, wait a minute, Brill missed something. Twenty-four thousand words is almost the whole magazine these days, given how small it is. Twenty-four thousand words and he missed something, and Iglesias said what he missed was the doctors are making too much money. So Iglesias, the author of this piece in TIME magazine, says that we need Congress to mandate lower prices. We need Congress to mandate lower payments to doctors. <\/p>\n

Let me read from this article. “When foreigners force prices to be lower, they get lower prices.” Really? The National Health Service in Great Britain, really, prices are down because people want them to be? It\u2019s absurd. “When Americans force prices to be lower (via Medicare), we get lower prices. If we want lower prices through new legislation, the way to get them is to write laws mandating that the prices be lowered.” Oh, well, why didn\u2019t I think of that? Why don\u2019t we have somebody in Congress write a law that gasoline prices are too expensive? And then why don\u2019t we have a law saying that houses are too expensive, and let\u2019s have Congress write a law that says property, land, is too expensive. And next, let\u2019s have somebody in Congress write a law that college is too expensive, tuition prices are going through the roof, we need Congress to mandate lower prices. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Now, the low-information voters in the audience are cheering right now when they hear me say this. I am sitting here, you and I are well aware I\u2019m making fun of this proposition. Everybody knows that that\u2019s not how you make prices lower. You cannot artificially — well, you can, you can do it, but you\u2019re gonna blow up the whole system. It does not work. Wage and price controls have never worked, folks. You know what the best illustration is, and it still happens in countries where they freeze wages and prices. The first time I was alive and this happened, 1972, \u201973 I remember I lived in Pittsburgh. I was working for a radio station that was owned by ABC. I was very proud of that. ABC was big back then. <\/p>\n

Nixon announced wage and price controls, just froze everything, and management at the station loved it. “Oh, we would love to give you a raise but, nah, the government\u2019s frozen, we can\u2019t do it,” and they of course didn\u2019t look for creative ways for us. They did for themselves. They invented bonuses, stock options, all kinds of new compensation that were not covered by the freeze. And then I noticed I\u2019d go to the grocery store, and prices still went up. I\u2019d say, “Wait, how does this happen? I thought there was a freeze. There\u2019s a freeze on my wages.” I asked an economist about this one day later on, how\u2019d this happen. <\/p>\n

He said, “Well, it\u2019s very simple. For example, in the butcher department the grocery store, all they did was invent a new cut, maybe the Delmonico B that never existed, and there were no price controls on the Delmonico B. So they stopped selling Delmonico cut because the price is frozen. They create this new Delmonico B, which might just be an ounce bigger, and they can charge whatever they want for it.” The point is the creative are always going to find ways around artificially mandated prices. <\/p>\n

But this is one of these things that low-information voters are never, ever gonna learn. All they\u2019re gonna do, if they hear about it — it\u2019s a roll of the dice even on that — but if they do hear that this guy, \u2019cause I don\u2019t think the low-information crowds are reading TIME magazine. But if one of them happens to stumble across it in the doctor\u2019s office, which is where a lot of low-information people hang out, that and the bowling alley, if they happen to run in to a copy of TIME magazine, if they happen to open it and read the words, not just look at the pictures, and they stumble across this idea that Congress could just make health care more affordable by mandating lower prices, they\u2019d start cheering it. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Well, they already think the government does everything else. Why doesn\u2019t the government fix prices? Why doesn\u2019t the government make things cheaper? They\u2019re doing everything else. And they would cheer it. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we\u2019re up against. And that\u2019s why I\u2019m warning you doctors, don\u2019t sit out there and think this is never gonna happen. The ball is rolling now. We\u2019ve got a president who thinks the health care system\u2019s broken precisely because there are too many people in it getting rich in an immoral and unjust way. We have a whole bunch of leftists who believe there ought not be profit in anything, anything, but especially health care, because that\u2019s a humanitarian pursuit. <\/p>\n

Leftists really think that a drugstore owner, grocery store, whatever, should sell everything at cost, make no profit, so that everybody can afford things. They think that would be fair. Why should there be profit you? If you explain to them: What would the man who owns the store live on if he charges only what it costs him to buy the products on his shelves? He\u2019s gotta pay his taxes. He\u2019s not gonna be able to afford to keep the store open. He won\u2019t be able to buy his own food. <\/p>\n

“Well, let him go get food stamps, then, like I do,” would be the reaction. “Why should there be profit in food? We all need food. We can\u2019t live without food, why should there be profit in it?” That\u2019s where we\u2019re headed, folks. And we\u2019ve got a regime that\u2019s promoting and rewarding that kind of misunderstanding — I\u2019m being charitable — ignorance. They\u2019re promoting it. <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: New York Times has already done this story. We told you about it January 8th: “Health Care and Profits, a Poor Mix.” It\u2019s a very long story. The momentum is already underway. Democrats are worried, folks, that the cuts in sequestration will actually not be that bad. They\u2019re worried about that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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