{"id":33026,"date":"2009-07-22T01:01:01","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T02:10:05","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-05-19T02:10:05","modified_gmt":"2011-05-19T02:10:05","slug":"dems_draw_laughs_at_town_halls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2009\/07\/22\/dems_draw_laughs_at_town_halls\/","title":{"rendered":"Dems Draw Laughs at Town Halls"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

RUSH: It is increasingly clear as we travel around the country. I watched town hall meetings with membership of Congress on health care. It is clear that voters know much more than government officials do about what\u2019s in the plan. We had Kathleen Sebelius down there in Reserve, Louisiana. A guy stands up and says, ‘It\u2019ll be a cold day in hell before he socializes my country.\u2019 She had no clue. She lost it, because these are junior gods! Obama is god. These people think that they\u2019re universally loved like he is. Ben Cardin he got hit up pretty good by a guy in Maryland. And Russ Carnahan, this may take the cake. Russ Carnahan. You know, you might be able to take the combined IQ of the Carnahan family and it wouldn\u2019t equal a pencil eraser. I\u2019m telling you these people, this is just hilarious. This is Monday at Forest Park Campus, St. Louis Community College in St. Louis. Representative Russ Carnahan (Democrat-Missouri) held a town hall meeting to talk about health care reform. Here is a portion of his remarks.<\/line> <\/line>CARNAHAN: The overall cost of the package has been estimated at about a trillion dollars over ten years. About half of that comes from savings and inefficiencies in the system.<\/line><\/p>\n

AUDIENCE: (laughter)<\/p>\n

CARNAHAN: Part of that Congressional Budget Office —<\/p>\n

RUSH: Hold it. Hold it a minute. Now, recue that. They laughed. They laughed when Russ Carnahan said, ‘The estimated cost is a trillion dollars over ten years, and about half of that comes from savings and inefficiencies.\u2019 Now, do you know who first said ‘inefficiencies\u2019? Obama! He misspoke. He meant to say ‘efficiencies.\u2019 They had to rush out a correction from the White House and they said, ‘Everybody knew what he meant.\u2019 Russ Carnahan didn\u2019t get the memo. Russ Carnahan stuck with inefficiencies! Here it is from the top.<\/p>\n

CARNAHAN: The overall cost of the package has been estimated at about a trillion dollars over ten years. About half of that comes from savings and inefficiencies in the system.<\/p>\n

AUDIENCE: (laughter)<\/p>\n

CARNAHAN: Part of that Congressional Budget Office most recently came out, uh, and analyzed the current plan and said that it was not only deficit neutral — which has been one of the important factors for the president and congressional leaders — but also that over ten years it would create a $6 billion surplus. <\/p>\n

AUDIENCE: (laughter)<\/p>\n

CARNAHAN: So the —<\/p>\n

RUSH: They\u2019re laughing at him! They know more than he does! They\u2019re laughing at their congressman. They\u2019re laughing at their Democrat congressman at Forest Park Campus in the St. Louis Community College in St. Louis. Here\u2019s another portion of this town hall.<\/p>\n

CARNAHAN: When you have the larger pool, uh, we also have the ability to spread and shrink those administrative costs so that a larger portion of our health care dollar is actually going to treating a patient, as opposed to administrative costs. Novel concept. <\/p>\n

AUDIENCE: (chuckling)<\/p>\n

CARNAHAN: But it\u2019s a very important part of — of creating those larger pools.<\/p>\n

MAN #1: If it\u2019s so good, why doesn\u2019t the Congress have to be on it?<\/p>\n

MAN #2: Yeah, right!<\/p>\n

AUDIENCE: (cheers and applause)<\/p>\n

RUSH: ‘If it\u2019s so good, why doesn\u2019t the Congress have to be on it?\u2019 As I said earlier, the health plan… We hear about the health plan that Congress has. It\u2019s not government-run. It is a smorgasbord of choices. It\u2019s paid for by us, but it\u2019s not government-run. They have private sector health coverage, folks. Everybody misunderstands this. They think it\u2019s a government-run program. It\u2019s not. These clowns are the government, and they would no more entrust their health care to each other than they would entrust their lives to each other. But they\u2019ll put us in the system. Their health care, after Obamacare gets done, will continue to be private sector health care. They\u2019re not opting into this. Their health care is not government-run. All right, let\u2019s go back. So Russ Carnahan got laughed at and ridiculed by his own constituents. Let\u2019s go back and let\u2019s revisit Monday in Maryland, Ben Cardin talking to a constituent who\u2019s chosen to not buy insurance, likes his life that way.<\/p>\n

BROADUS: That\u2019s working out fine for me because I\u2019m able to save that extra money and give it to my family members and use it on myself.<\/p>\n

AUDIENCE: (applause)<\/p>\n

BROADUS: Senator Cardin, I want to know, are you going to tell me, an individual, that I have to buy health care or else you\u2019re going to fine me $2,500 every year that I don\u2019t pay it?<\/p>\n

AUDIENCE: (applause)<\/p>\n

CARDIN: What happens if you get sick? What happens if you are in a car accident or what happens if you happen to slip and you have a broken bone and you end up in the emergency room? You are a — a — You don\u2019t pay. You are part of the population that shifts its cost over to a person who does pay. <\/line><\/line>RUSH: Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.<\/line><\/p>\n

AUDIENCE: (applause)<\/p>\n

CARDIN: And they\u2019re paying for you!<\/p>\n

RUSH: Wrong. Wrong. The truth of the matter is here that he didn\u2019t deny the guy\u2019s question. The guy asked, ‘You gonna make me buy insurance or fine me?\u2019 Cardin says, ‘Yeah, and you know why? Because you don\u2019t have the guts to pay. You don\u2019t have a plan, and so you\u2019re going to be paid for by others.\u2019 Wrong, you go to emergency room, they treat you. It\u2019s federal law. They send you a bill. You don\u2019t pay it they come repossess one of your kids, your car, whatever they can get. Yeah, you can be fine if you don\u2019t have it. It\u2019s a ‘right,\u2019 you understand, and you can be fine if you don\u2019t have that right. Ha. Let\u2019s go back to Kathleeeeeeeeen Sebelius in Reserve, Louisiana, also on Monday.<\/p>\n

MAN: It would be a cold day in hell before he socializes my country.<\/p>\n

SEBELIUS: Excuse me. Excuse me. The federal employee health system would stay in place, as would other employer-based coverage.<\/p>\n

AUDIENCE: (booing)<\/p>\n

RUSH: No, the federal employee health system would stay in place in the private sector. Other employer-based coverage would vanish because they would opt out of it.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Listen to this. I have just been handed, ladies and gentlemen, this is intel, intercepted intel. An e-mail from a liberal pro-government-run health care advocate in Virginia to his organizing group, get \u2019em all fired up. Here\u2019s the e-mail: ‘We are at a transformational time, especially when it comes to the possibility of getting health care coverage for every person in this country. Unfortunately, conservative talk radio has people all wound up and calls to some of our members of Congress this week are running 15 to 1 against health care reform. How can anyone advocate keeping things the way they are?\u2019 The libs are upset with me again. <\/p>\n

By the way, folks, we now know why this health care plan has to be passed before the August recess. We have learned it in this half hour. Obama says you need a deadline to get anything done. No. That\u2019s not the answer. The answer is what we\u2019ve heard in these town hall meetings from Kathleen Sebelius in Reserve, Louisiana, Russ Carnahan in St. Louis, and Ben Cardin in Maryland. What Obama and Rahm are going to tell members of Congress is, if you don\u2019t do this before the August recess, you\u2019re going to go home, you\u2019re going to do your town meetings, and your constituents are gonna hang you out to dry. They\u2019re going to beat you up and there\u2019s going to be audio and video of it and by the time you get back here, Limbaugh and Hannity on TV and everybody is going to be playing all of this footage of town meetings where your constituents are ripping you to shreds and laughing at you. That\u2019s why you gotta get it done before the August recess. I\u2019ll lay you 10 to 1, after these three incidents here, I guarantee you Rahm Emanuel is going to tell \u2019em that. You better get this done or you\u2019re going to get destroyed when you go home for your recess, and they\u2019re going to make clowns outta you for the rest of your career.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: To illustrate my point here, ladies and gentlemen, I guarantee you, Obama, Emanuel are telling members of Congress, ‘You\u2019ve seen what\u2019s happened to Carnahan. You saw what happened to Kathleen Sebelius. You have seen what happened to Ben Cardin. The constituencies out there know more about this bill than you do or I do.\u2019 This is what Obama is telling them, ‘And they are gonna pepper you with stuff and you are going to be made to look like a laughingstock and Limbaugh and everybody else are going to be playing footage of these town meetings you\u2019re gonna have in the recess. You better get this done now before you leave.\u2019 That\u2019s the reason for the deadline. Remember Monday, Obama, he doesn\u2019t even know what\u2019s in the bill. He had a conference call with left-wing bloggers and a liberal blogger from Maine had this exchange.<\/p>\n

MAN: Investor\u2019s Business Daily, they\u2019re saying that H.R. 3200 will make individual private medical insurance illegal. Is this true? Will people be able to keep their insurance and will insurers be able to write new policies even though H.R. 3200 is passed?<\/p>\n

OBAMA: You know, I have to say that I am not familiar with the provision you\u2019re talking about.<\/p>\n

RUSH: So you don\u2019t want to be laughed at like I\u2019ve been laughed at, and you don\u2019t want to be laughed at like Russ Carnahan has been laughed at — of course, he\u2019s laughed at a lot, not just this at a town meeting. You don\u2019t want to get laughed at like Cardin got laughed at. You don\u2019t want to get treated like Kathleen Sebelius got treated. So hurry up. And I want you to hear this again. This is from the ABC Obama special on health care from back in June. Jane Sturm stands up, ‘My mother is 105. At 100 the doctor said to her, ‘I can\u2019t do anything more unless you have a pacemaker.\u2019 I said go for it, she said go for it, the specialist said nah, she\u2019s too old. She went to another specialist who saw her joy of life, and that specialist said, ‘I\u2019m going for it,\u2019 and five years ago she got the pacemaker. My question to you, Mr. President, outside the medical criteria for prolonging life for somebody who\u2019s elderly, is there any consideration that could be given for a certain spirit?\u2019 You know, this question in the United States of America, we actually have a citizen asking the president, ‘Mr. President, is there something you can do to take into account somebody\u2019s life before killing them because of health care?\u2019 And here\u2019s Obama\u2019s answer.<\/p>\n

OBAMA: I don\u2019t think that we can make judgments based on people\u2019s spirit. That would be a pretty subjective decision to be making. I think we have to have rules that say that we are gonna provide good quality care for all people. End-of-life care is one of the most difficult sets of decisions that we\u2019re going to have to make. But understand that those decisions already are being made in one way or another. If they\u2019re not being made under Medicare and Medicaid, they\u2019re being made by private insurers. At least we can let doctors know and your mom know that, you know what, maybe this isn\u2019t going to help. Maybe you\u2019re better off not having the surgery but taking the painkiller.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Let\u2019s just zone you out. Let\u2019s just zone your grandmother out, loop her out, put her on the pain medicine, and she won\u2019t even know that she\u2019s going to die. She won\u2019t remember dying. Can you believe this is happening in our country? I can understand somebody calling up Kim Jong-il. I can understand somebody calling up Hugo Chavez or Fidel Castro, if they could get through, saying, ‘Can you do something, my grandmother is only 50 and –‘ ‘Nah, too old, no money, dead.\u2019 Hang up. But calling the president of the United States and asking this kind of question? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: It is increasingly clear as we travel around the country. I watched town hall meetings with membership of Congress on health care. It is clear that voters know much more than government officials do about what\u2019s in the plan. We had Kathleen Sebelius down there in Reserve, Louisiana. 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