{"id":32678,"date":"2011-05-19T02:15:41","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T02:15:41","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-05-19T02:15:41","modified_gmt":"2011-05-19T02:15:41","slug":"there_is_no_health_care_crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2011\/05\/19\/there_is_no_health_care_crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"There is No Health Care “Crisis”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

RUSH: To the phones. Manhattan, Kansas, this is Dale. Thank you for calling, sir. It\u2019s great to have you here with us.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Honored to talk to you, sir.<\/p>\n

RUSH: I can understand. Thank you.<\/p>\n

CALLER: My question is — and I\u2019m throwing this out to you — what exactly is the crisis in health care? I\u2019ve been hearing about ‘crisis\u2019 in health care ever since the Hillary days. And quite honestly, I don\u2019t see it. Now, I\u2019m not among the intellectual elite in this country —<\/p>\n

RUSH: Good.<\/p>\n

CALLER: — but I still can\u2019t see it.<\/p>\n

RUSH: That means you\u2019re a real guy.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Thank you.<\/p>\n

RUSH: You bet. It\u2019s a great question. The ‘crisis\u2019 in health care is like the ‘crisis\u2019 in everything else: manufactured.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Precisely.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Take a little survey. Dale, are you personally fretting? Are you in crisis mode? Are you walking around in a general state of fear over the fact you might get sick?<\/p>\n

CALLER: No.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Do you know anybody who is?<\/p>\n

CALLER: Oh, there\u2019s a lot of hypochondriacs out there but —<\/p>\n

RUSH: Yeah, but are they worried about losing everything they own if they do get sick?<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, sure, but there\u2019s a real easy solution to that. I\u2019m a small businessman out there — and by ‘small,\u2019 I mean probably microbusiness. I employ anywhere from six to ten people depending on the economy. I am able to offer my employees at no cost to them major medical coverage through Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas for $150 a month each. And I pay for that, by the way.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Yes?<\/p>\n

CALLER: So what\u2019s the crisis? <\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, that\u2019s my point, that\u2019s my point. There is no… You\u2019re asking a very valid question. There is no crisis. The crisis in health care is in the UK. The crisis in health care is in Canada. The crisis in health care is in Cuba. The crisis in health care is with the ChiComs. The crisis in health care is with a lot of other places. The crisis in health care here has been manufactured. My point is, folks — just ask yourself in your own circle of friends, your family, community, your neighborhood, whatever — how many people do you know who are actually walking around daily in fear, constantly fear of an auto accident or a major disease is going to wipe \u2019em out? This is what we\u2019ve been told every day, just like during the last eight years — well, seven years prior to this year — we were told the economy was sinking fast that it was approaching a recession. <\/p>\n

It was horrible while unemployment was low, an historical all-time low of 4.7%. Now it\u2019s 9.4%. When it was 4.7% we were all being told daily by State-Run Media that the economy was in the tank and going south and it was horrible, it was horrible. And so they go out and do surveys and polls of people: ‘How are you doing economically?\u2019 ‘Oh, I\u2019m doing fine, but I\u2019m worried about my neighbor. I guess things aren\u2019t so good out there.\u2019 It\u2019s the same thing with health care. ‘How is your health care?\u2019 ‘I pretty much like it, but I guess there\u2019s a lot of people out there uninsured and really have a lot of trouble out there.\u2019 It\u2019s just been manufactured. There is no ‘crisis\u2019 in health care unless you want to talk about the 47 million uninsured, then if you break down that number, you find that 60% of them are illegal aliens. Others make income over 75 grand who choose not to have it. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s the crisis — and there may be people that costs are a little bit high, but that\u2019s because of government involvement. Heritage Foundation today, great stuff here. ‘Yesterday the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a preliminary analysis of the Kennedy-Dodd health care plan, and the results were truly frightening. Assessing just Title I of the draft legislation, CBO estimated the plan…\u2019 Now listen to this. Look at me. ‘CBO estimated the plan would add $1 trillion to the federal deficit while only extending health insurance to a net 16 million more Americans.\u2019 Now, I mentioned this earlier: $1 trillion for one-third of the uninsured. ‘As scary as that is, what is even more disturbing is what costs the CBO did not estimate: ‘The proposal does not include a ‘public plan\u2019 that would be offered in the exchanges, nor does it contain provisions that would require employers to offer health insurance benefits or impose a fee or tax on them if they did not offer insurance coverage to their workers.” <\/p>\n

In other words, the $1 trillion cost to insure 16 million uninsured does not include the public option! And the public option is the deal that Obama wants. This cost doesn\u2019t even estimate that. What Obama is going to do is throw this out. He\u2019ll say, ‘This is not accurate. We\u2019re not going to listen to this,\u2019 and he\u2019ll have his own Office of Management and Budget do it. Now… ‘Even without the public plan, the CBO analysis undercuts one of the fundamental promises President Barack Obama has repeatedly made about health care reform. Speaking to the American Medical Association yesterday, President Obama promised: ‘If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what.\u2019 The CBO\u2019 — the so-called nonpartisan CBO — ‘disagrees. According to their analysis, while the Kennedy-Dodd bill would enable 39 million Americans to obtain health insurance, the plan would kick about 15 million people out of the system because their employers would no longer offer insurance…\u2019 The employers would opt into the public option. There are a lot of employers want to off-load this. ‘[C]overage from other sources would decline by 8 million.\u2019 So 27 million people would be thrown off insurance rolls and have to go public option. You would lose your choice of doctor. ‘These numbers will only look worse once a public plan is factored in. And the public plan is just one of the biggest problems in the Kennedy-Dodd bill: <\/p>\n

‘An independent analysis by the Lewin Group, for example, shows that a public plan depending on eligibility and payments rates could result in up to 119.1 million Americans being switched by their employers from their existing coverage or transferred to government-sponsored coverage…\u2019 This is why it\u2019s Trojan horse and this is why he\u2019s denying this, saying it\u2019s not going to happen. But in the real world — where they never score dynamics, they only score statics in these things. Score the dynamics and you got a bunch of businesses with a chance to off-load their health care expenses to the so-called public option, you don\u2019t think that some will do it? And the estimates of the numbers that want to do it will lead ‘up to 119.1 million Americans being switched by their employers from their existing coverage or transferred to government-sponsored coverage,\u2019 the public option. <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Back to that CBO report, the public option not even part of this $1 trillion, Obama says nobody\u2019s going to lose their health plan. That\u2019s absolute BS. UAW, the big unions, big companies, they\u2019re going to dump all their health care costs on the taxpayers. That\u2019s why Obama and company are going to fight like hell for this public option. That\u2019s why we gotta continue —<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Washington Post today: ‘More Problems Than Solutions in Medicare Report.\u2019 Now, this is not the CBO score of Obama\u2019s health care proposal. This is a separate report on Medicare. Now, keep in mind that Obama\u2019s health care public option proposal is essentially just expanding Medicare as it exists. In fact, they start the story this way: ‘Expanding access to Medicare will not solve the nation\u2019s health-care cost problem. That\u2019s the message of a report yesterday by a commission that advises Congress on the federal medical program for older Americans.\u2019 Expanding access will not solve its problem. Of course not, \u2019cause it\u2019s broke! <\/p>\n

‘To eliminate wasteful spending, policymakers must transform economic incentives for doctors, hospitals and other providers of medical services — though it isn\u2019t clear how, according to the report. As Congress and the Obama administration seek to restrain potentially crushing increases in health-care spending, the report by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) is emblematic of the larger debate: long on problems and short on solutions. … To illustrate what it might take to save Medicare, the commission describes how primary-care doctors, specialists and hospitals could be reorganized into ‘accountable care organizations\u2019 whose members would receive bonuses if the organizations met quality and cost targets.\u2019 Oh, they want to have private sector incentives here, is that what they\u2019re talking about? ‘To ratchet up the incentives, health-care providers that fail to meet cost and quality targets could be penalized.\u2019 <\/p>\n

Now, the program here says this: ‘If current spending and utilization trends continue, the Medicare program is fiscally unsustainable. … Part of the problem is that Medicare\u2019s fee-for-service payment systems reward more care — and more complex care — without regard to the quality or value of that care.\u2019 So we have two things that hit yesterday. We had the CBO report on Obama\u2019s health care plan — well, it\u2019s the Kennedy plan, but it\u2019s the Obama plan being run by Kennedy and whoever else in the Senate. I forget who other guy with him is. Anyway, that would take $1 trillion over ten years just to insure one-third of the 47 million uninsured. And then the Medicare report says that the government\u2019s Medicare program is fiscally unsustainable. There\u2019s no reason to do any of this. There is no reason to do any of it, fiscally, common sense. The only reason to do this is if you are an authoritarian and you want to grab as much control of the US private sector health care system as you can. That\u2019s the only reason to do this, because there\u2019s not one commonsense or financial or fiscal or business reason to do either of these things that are being proposed. Like I said last week, can we just wait to see if anything else Obama does works before we mess up with one-fifth of the US economy? <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Rich Lowry makes a good point in the column today I read in the New York Post. ‘Back in the mid 1990s, Gingrich proposed slowing the rate of growth of Medicare and Medicaid…\u2019 Remember the Democrats produced this fraudulent commercial Newt saying, ah, we just want to let Medicare and Medicaid wither on the vine. He wasn\u2019t talking about letting Medicare and Medicaid wither on the vine. He ‘was clobbered by Democrats and the press for waging war on the elderly and the indigent. Now, almost every other day, President Obama finds another hundred billion dollars to cut out of Medicare and Medicaid,\u2019 in order to pay for his big nationalized health care, and nobody is upset about it! Can you remember a time when a government official started talking about cutting Social Security or Medicare or Medicaid and nobody beefed? Never! Obama is getting away with it each and every day. People will takedown their security for liberty all too frequently. <\/p>\n

RUSH: Let me ask you to consider another question, another point. Many people in this health care thing think what it\u2019s all about is them getting health care free \u2019cause it\u2019s unaffordable. They want their insurance free and their health care free. I\u2019ll ask you, the general audience, in addition to specifying how I just did it with people who think that health care is going to be given away. How many of you, at any time in your life, have gotten a comp of anything? Maybe it\u2019s a couple tickets to a game; maybe somebody gave you something, whatever. But just because it didn\u2019t cost you anything, did it mean it didn\u2019t cost anybody anything? Costs don\u2019t go away just because you don\u2019t happen to pay them. They\u2019ll come back and bite you in the rear end in you don\u2019t know how many different ways, what you\u2019re obligating yourself to — or, in the case of Medicare, Medicaid, or health care, you think it doesn\u2019t cost you anything so it doesn\u2019t cost anybody anything? It\u2019s going to cost somebody something, and they\u2019re going to come back and get it from you one way or the other. Either your service is going to go to hell and you\u2019re not going to get as good coverage \u2019cause you\u2019re not paying anything for it. It\u2019s like Thomas Sowell said, he said this in a column in 2005: ‘Costs don\u2019t go away because you refuse to pay \u2019em any more than gravity goes away if you refuse to acknowledge it.\u2019 Thinking that something doesn\u2019t cost you when it does have a price is the same thing as thinking gravity isn\u2019t going to kill you when you jump off the mountain. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: To the phones. Manhattan, Kansas, this is Dale. Thank you for calling, sir. It\u2019s great to have you here with us. CALLER: Honored to talk to you, sir. RUSH: I can understand. Thank you. 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