{"id":32413,"date":"2009-05-13T01:01:01","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T02:25:19","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-05-19T02:25:19","modified_gmt":"2011-05-19T02:25:19","slug":"obama_will_tax_medical_benefits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2009\/05\/13\/obama_will_tax_medical_benefits\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama Will Tax Medical Benefits"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

RUSH: Here\u2019s Hutch in Bunnell, Florida. Nice to have you, sir, on the EIB Network. Hello.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Thank you, Rush. Thank you for taking my call.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Yes, sir.<\/p>\n

CALLER: I appreciate you. Without you, there is nobody. So I need to make —<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, that may be going a little far. I mean, that\u2019s not quite true, ‘without me there\u2019s nobody.\u2019<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, you\u2019re the gutsy guy.<\/p>\n

RUSH: I appreciate that.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Ditto on Sarah Palin, by the way. Listen, Rush, there\u2019s no way that I support national health care, but I find it real hard to believe that people do not remember President Obama stating during the presidential debates that under his plan all citizens in America would have the same opportunity to the same health care that he has.<\/p>\n

RUSH: I just got a link. I can\u2019t listen to it during the program. I\u2019ve gotta send it off somewhere. But I just got a link to the ad that Obama ran accusing McCain of wanting to raise taxes on health care benefits one way or the other, and I\u2019ve gotta send it up to see if it\u2019s what it is. But I need to ask you something, Hutch. Did he actually say that he would have a health care plan that ‘would\u2019 give health care coverage exactly like members of Congress have, or did he say that we ‘should\u2019 have circumstances like that?<\/p>\n

CALLER: No, sir. He said, Rush, under his plan, all Americans would have the same opportunity to the same health care as he has.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Weeeell… Nah. The word ‘opportunity\u2019 just throws a monkey wrench into that. ‘Opportunity to the same health care\u2019 is not the identical plan.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, that\u2019s true.<\/p>\n

RUSH: The health plan that members of Congress have, I guarantee you Hutch, old buddy, you\u2019re never going to have it unless you go buy it yourself. It\u2019s that good. You\u2019re never going to have it unless you go buy it yourself. And, of course, then it wouldn\u2019t be the health plan they have because they don\u2019t have to buy it. We\u2019re buying their health care plan. Now, what Obama is planning on doing is modeling national health care after Medicare. And what is incredible about that is that Medicare is out of money. In, what, seven or eight years, Medicare is broke? We\u2019re going to have a national health care plan modeled on something that\u2019s going broke! I\u2019m telling you again: they\u2019re going to hook everybody in. They\u2019re going to use Ted Kennedy\u2019s name on this. They\u2019re going to get sympathy votes with Ted Kennedy\u2019s name on the bill, some way, somehow. And they\u2019re going to talk about how the ‘right\u2019 everybody has to health insurance, and we\u2019re going to insure everybody, the \u201950 million\u2019 that aren\u2019t. We\u2019re gonna come up with the $90 billion. It\u2019s just immoral that people don\u2019t have health care. It\u2019s not going to be about that. It\u2019s not going to be about providing health coverage because if it were, they wouldn\u2019t do this. Health coverage is going to become less and health treatment is going to get worse. What this is about is being able to raise taxes at every turn in your life, at every step of your life. That\u2019s what this is about.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Here\u2019s Lindsey in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Thanks for taking my call, Rush.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Yes, ma\u2019am.<\/p>\n

CALLER: I\u2019ve got a question for you.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Yes, ma\u2019am.<\/p>\n

CALLER: They say there about 50 million people who are uninsured right now.<\/p>\n

RUSH: The number is not correct but that\u2019s what they say.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Okay. Right now they need $90 billion, and they want to take away the tax deduction from the companies who currently give their employees health insurance.<\/p>\n

RUSH: That\u2019s exactly right. That\u2019s one of the things that\u2019s being tossed around as a possibility.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Okay. So if they do that, and more businesses can\u2019t afford to stay in business, and you have more people who are unemployed — or who are unemployed and uninsured. So where are they going to go to come up with the money they need to insure those people?<\/p>\n

RUSH: Um, print it!<\/p>\n

CALLER: (giggling)<\/p>\n

RUSH: Where are they coming up with the money they need to do anything now, Lindsey? <\/p>\n

CALLER: That is true.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Where are they coming up with the…? So using your scenario, let\u2019s take a phantom business out there — a mythical business that is deducting health care costs, the benefits it gives to its employees — and all of a sudden a new tax comes along and says you can\u2019t deduct it anymore. So those former tax deductions are going to be the cost of doing business. So one of two things will have to happen, maybe both. The business raises the price of its product or service or lays off some workers. Especially in this environment when things are not growing at all. Things are shrinking.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Right.<\/p>\n

RUSH: So people lose their jobs. If they lose their jobs, they lose their health insurance, unless they go COBRA. But that\u2019s going to cost somebody some money. The point is, when all this breaks down and there\u2019s only one option left, guess what the option is going to be?<\/p>\n

CALLER: National health care.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Governmeeeeeent! Exactly right. The health care line right next to the motor vehicle line.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Also, an extension to that is, we\u2019re military, which is already government, pretty much, health care. Would he expect that the military would then have government health care automatically?<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, but let\u2019s look at how that\u2019s being run. I mean, the VA is constantly complaining about lack of funding, inefficiencies and so forth. A lot of veterans are not getting the promised medical care that they were assured. It\u2019s not because nobody wants them to have it. It\u2019s just incompetence. Bureaucracies this big cannot function! It\u2019s already been demonstrated. People are much… This is what\u2019s so frustrating to me. People are so much better off taking care of themselves. They just are! You\u2019re a far better person for doing it. You\u2019re happier. You\u2019re going to be better off if you take care of yourself. But the more people that farm out taking care of themselves to the government because they\u2019re Americans and they\u2019re entitled or whatever, it\u2019s just going to break down. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s breaking down everywhere it\u2019s been tried. The Great Society, the war on poverty, it doesn\u2019t and hasn\u2019t worked. Arguably, it has made the cultural decline worse and it has sped it up. The notion of taking care of yourself, assuming responsibility for yourself, that is as controversial today as Miss California saying she believes marriage is between a man and a woman. You go out and say, ‘No, I\u2019d rather provide my own health insurance. I\u2019d rather take care of myself. I don\u2019t want to have to have to go to the government. I don\u2019t want to have to be dependent.\u2019 ‘Well, easy for you to say! Easy for you to say, but not everybody is capable.\u2019 There would be a far greater number of people capable if we inspired and motivated them and taught \u2019em. <\/p>\n

And they\u2019d be happier, and they\u2019d be more fulfilled, and their lives would not be empty if more people were oriented toward taking care of themselves and their families and what have you. But this rat race to make everybody a victim of something and then make them dependent, and then claim the government has an obligation… The ‘government\u2019 is just us, when it comes to money. We all have an obligation to take care of people who don\u2019t take care of themselves. Now, the people who can\u2019t are another matter. We all have compassion for them. But people who can take care of themselves who have been weaned and trained not to, who expect everybody else to take care of them for whatever grievance they\u2019ve got? Way too much of that\u2019s been going on and we\u2019re reaching a tipping point now. It doesn\u2019t work. <\/p>\n

You do not have a happy country. You do not have a prosperous country. You do not have a grow economy. You have none of that. All you have is a political party in total control, which is what this bunch of people wants. <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Here\u2019s the ad. This is audio sound bite number 28, Mister Broadcast Engineer. Obama health care ad that he ran against Senator McCain last fall.<\/line><\/line>ANNOUNCER: John McCain talks about a $5,000 tax credit for health care, but here\u2019s what he\u2019s not telling you. McCain would make you pay income tax on your health insurance benefits. Taxing health benefits for the first time ever, and then tax credit, McCain\u2019s own website says it goes straight to the insurance companies, not to you, leaving you on your own to pay McCain\u2019s health insurance tax. Taxing health care instead of fixing it. We can\u2019t afford John McCain.<\/line><\/p>\n

OBAMA: I\u2019m Barack Obama, and I approved this message.<\/p>\n

RUSH: The reason we\u2019re playing this ad for you is because the New York Times has a story today that they are $90 billion short in coming up with a way to pay for Obama care. And one of the ideas being bandied about is to tax health care, or to limit, to remove, to eliminate the tax deductibility of health care benefits given to you by your employer. Right now there\u2019s no tax payment on these benefits. You don\u2019t pay any income tax on them and your employer gets to deduct the benefits. The Obama administration — New York Times says it — they are trying to convince the president we\u2019ve got to do this. The politicians in the White House, ‘We can\u2019t have that ad out there,\u2019 this ad that you just heard, ‘We can\u2019t have that ad running out there.\u2019 So this is where we are. But, folks, ad notwithstanding, there\u2019s no way that these health benefits are not going to be taxed one way or a couple of ways. There\u2019s no way. They\u2019re going to be taxed as income to you, imputed income to you, or they\u2019re gonna eliminate the tax deductibility, and maybe a combination of both. It\u2019s too great a source of money, and they don\u2019t have any. And they want national health care. They\u2019re going to tell everybody only the rich are going to be paying this tax anyway, not you, as they lie to you again. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: Here\u2019s Hutch in Bunnell, Florida. Nice to have you, sir, on the EIB Network. Hello. CALLER: Thank you, Rush. Thank you for taking my call. RUSH: Yes, sir. CALLER: I appreciate you. Without you, there is nobody. So I need to make — RUSH: Well, that may be going a little far. 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