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RUSH: Ronnie, Bergen County in New Jersey, you’re next on the Rush Limbaugh program. Hi.

CALLER: Hi, Mr. Limbaugh.

RUSH: Hi.

CALLER: I’ve been listening to you for a long time, and you’ve converted me, completely.

RUSH: Well.

CALLER: I appreciate it.

RUSH: Thank you. Thank you very much.

CALLER: The question I have is, I was listening to his speech, in Indiana.

RUSH: Yes.

CALLER: And I hate to say it, but my president blatantly lied. He said there are no earmarks in this bill.

RUSH: The whole thing is an earmark.

CALLER: Exactly.

RUSH: The whole thing is pork. Earmark, pork, what have you, it’s all the same stuff.

CALLER: The question I have for you is —

RUSH: Yes.

CALLER: — what does somebody like me, I’m a nurse, you know, I work in health care, I make a relatively decent living, but how do you get to the point to find out exactly what’s in the bill? I can’t find it out. I can’t get through my congressman, I can’t get through my senators, they won’t give me any information. To me, it boggles my mind that these people in Indiana, I feel like it’s like a cult. Nobody asks the hard questions.

RUSH: All right, I’ll tell you what you need to do. You go to my website: RushLimbaugh.com.

CALLER: Uh-huh?

RUSH: We’re going to link to this story this afternoon because it’s — you’re a nurse.

CALLER: I’m a nurse.

RUSH: You won’t believe the health provisions in this bill.

CALLER: Oh, yeah, I do.

RUSH: I don’t think you do.

CALLER: I do. We’re going to lose millions, millions.

RUSH: Betsy McCaughey has written a column at Bloomberg detailing some of the most onerous provisions in this stimulus bill on health care, and there’s a new bureaucracy created, the national coordinator of health information technology — now, listen to this — the national coordinator of health information technology will monitor treatments that your doctor gives you to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective.

CALLER: Rush.

RUSH: Wait a minute. The goal is to reduce costs and guide your doctor’s decisions. Page 442 and 446 of the stimulus bill.

CALLER: But, Rush, wait. I have a comment.

RUSH: Yeah?

CALLER: What about all these people that come in, right off the boat, right off the plane, to the hospital, and they get millions of dollars of care? It happens every day where I work, every day.

RUSH: It will continue.

CALLER: But I can’t get a tooth fixed.

RUSH: You can, but it’s going to be a laborious process. Look, I’ve gotta take a break here, but I want to give you some of the other details of the bill. I’m dead serious about the health requirements the bureaucracy set up in this so-called stimulus bill.

Be back in a minute.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Everybody assumes that the Obama administration’s health plan — the health reform, the gigantic national socialization of medicine bill — is going to be a standalone to come down the pike, and everybody’s especially thinking now it’s been delayed since the Puffster pulled himself out of consideration at Health and Human Services for not paying taxes. That is not true. Betsy McCaughey has read the relevant portions of the stimulus bill. She’s written about it in a commentary at Bloomberg.com, which we will link to at RushLimbaugh.com later this afternoon. By the way, for those of you who are like the lady that last called, who want to know where she could go to find out what’s in this, we got a pretty good list from National Review that we boxed at the website last week (we’ll put it in again today) of all of the pork, or the highlights of the pork in this bill. Why do you want to waste time going to a bunch of different websites? As some of my good buddies say, ‘We’ve coagulated it here all on one website.’ (laughing) We coagulated it out there. (laughing) Coagulated! You’ll be able to see it all at one place at RushLimbaugh.com.

I want to go through what Betsy McCaughey has discovered. We had a nurse on the phone mere moments ago. She wanted to know where she could go to figure out what all’s in it, which is why I again remind you of RushLimbaugh.com. But the stimulus bill, the job-creation bill (so improperly named) creates a ‘new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology… Now, this new bureaucracy will monitor newly digitized medical records. There are rules-for-health care coverage in this bill, and they will affect every individual in the United States. You can consult if you want to go try to find a PDF copy of the bill you can find the references are on page 445, 454, and 479.’

Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Now, there are arguments back and forth about whether or not this is a good thing. The opportunity for the loss of privacy is huge here by digitizing and making everybody’s health care records computerized, especially having a major federal database where everybody’s health records are. Some people say this is a good thing because it will assist in treatment, particularly in emergencies. When you go in for an emergency, if they can get your records… Let’s say you’re out of town. Say you’re vacationing in Alaska hunting moose and an accident happens up there, but you live in New Jersey. Doctors in Alaska will be able to consult the federal database to find out what your allergies are, what your treatments have been, what mistakes not to make on you.

That’s what they used to sell this, but (laughs) ask Alex Rodriguez about privacy. There are 104 names on this list from 2003 of people who tested positive for steroids in a year it was legal. Only his name gets released of the 104. The players union was supposed to destroy the list, and they didn’t. They had a reason for it, but they botched their philosophy. Their theory got confounded. So somebody who’s got it in for Alex Rodriguez released his name to Sports Illustrated, four or five different people, and so now he’s been tarnished with the steroids thing just as a lot of other players — Barry Bonds and others — have. This notion that privacy can exist particularly in a politicized Washington is a bit of a… I’m doubtful about it, but there are some people who like the idea. Anyway, this bill computerizes everybody’s health records. Then after everybody’s health records are computerized, this new bureaucracy is created, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology.

And he’ll have a whole bureaucracy at his disposal that ‘will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective.’ You know, right now a lot of you get all upset at your insurance company because they say, ‘Well, certain things will be covered and others won’t,’ and you want it to be left up to the doctor. Try the government being in charge of what the doctor can do, the kind of treatments that can be extended to you — and I’ll tell you who gets creamed in this, is the elderly. The elderly get really shafted in this, and I’ll explain why here in just a minute. Now, ‘The goal [of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology] is to reduce costs and ‘guide’ your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, ‘Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.’ According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and ‘learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”

Doctors have to join the federal community here in dolling out treatment so that it’s fair and equitable. ‘Keeping doctors informed of the newest medical findings is important, but enforcing uniformity,’ Betsy McCaughey writes, ‘goes too far. Hospitals and doctors that are not ‘meaningful users’ of the new system will face penalties. ‘Meaningful user’ isn’t defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose ‘more stringent measures of meaningful use over time’ (511, 518, 540-541). What penalties will deter your doctor from going beyond the electronically delivered protocols when your condition is atypical or you need an experimental treatment? The vagueness is intentional. In his book, Daschle proposed an appointed body with vast powers to make the ‘tough’ decisions elected politicians won’t make. The stimulus bill does that, and calls it the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (190-192). The goal, Daschle’s book explained, is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they are driving up costs.

‘He praises Europeans for being more willing to accept ‘hopeless diagnoses’ and ‘forgo experimental treatments,’ and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from the health-care system.’ Now, the page numbers that I’m giving you here refer to the PDF inversion of HR1EH, the stimulus bill, not Daschle’s book but the actual stimulus bill. Betsy McCaughey just read it and she’s reporting what’s in it. So Daschle says we need to become more like Europe. People need to accept catastrophic diagnosis and forget it. If you’re told it’s over, it’s over. We can’t keep spending money on people who want experimental treatments! We just can’t do this. Now, ‘Daschle says health-care reform ‘will not be pain free.’ Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt.’ You read that right.

Daschle says senior citizens ‘should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age,’ instead of trying to have them treated. ‘Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective. The stimulus bill would change that and apply a cost-effectiveness standard set by the Federal Council (464). The Federal Council is modeled after a UK board discussed in Daschle’s book. This board approves or rejects treatments using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit. Treatments for younger patients are more often approved than treatments for diseases that affect the elderly, such as osteoporosis.’ For example: ‘In 2006, a UK health board decreed that elderly patients with macular degeneration had to wait until they went blind in one eye before they could get a costly new drug to save the other eye.

‘It took almost three years of public protests before the board reversed its decision. If the Obama administration’s economic stimulus bill passes the Senate in its current form, seniors in the US will face similar rationing. Defenders of the system say that individuals benefit in younger years and sacrifice later.’ Let me translate this for you. You are a seasoned citizen. You come down with a disease that is not immediately life-threatening. You go into your doctor. The doctor consults the federal database to get your health care records. He then has to consult this new health council board. They then figure the cost of treating whatever’s wrong with you, based on the statistics that tell ’em how long you’re going to live — and if the cost vastly outweighs the number of years you’re going to live, they will deny you treatment.

That’s what Daschle says: you just need to become accepting. Seniors need to become accepting of their condition. Basically, you need to just go away and die. We don’t have the money. I’ll tell you the architect for this. I mean, she credits Daschle, but who was that governor in Colorado? It was Richard Lamm of Colorado: Old people have ‘a duty to die.’ Get out of the way because they’re putting too much pressure on the health care system. Younger people, they’ll get the treatment because it will be more cost effective. The statistics say they’ll live longer. Now, the reason that I’m harping on this… We got the call from the nurse. I wanted to tell her what was in this bill to reflect… This is in the stimulus bill. This is national health care, essentially. It is in the ‘stimulus bill,’ and they snuck it in.

Daschle advised Obama, ‘Stick it in here because the way the Clintons tried it failed. They went big. They went all in. It allowed for people to oppose it and tear it apart. Do it stealthily. Do it where nobody knows it’s happening,’ like the amnesty bill was tried. There are so many things like this in the stimulus bill that have nothing to do with stimulus but have everything to do with advancing the liberal agenda and strengthening and repairing the Democrat Party. Now, the Democrats, every campaign cycle, love to run around and accuse the Republicans of wanting to deny senior citizens Social Security, maybe kick ’em out of their houses or what have you. It is the Democrat apart which is essentially, in the stimulus bill, setting up procedures whereby the older you are, the more likely you are to have treatment denied simply because it isn’t gonna be worth the money.

Now, this is what happens when you throw yourself open to prospects of other people paying for what you need. Now, I know in health care it’s practically impossible not to do that. It’s a shame it has gotten to this point because it imprisons people, but here’s the very party that throws around these accusations about Republicans wanting to deny senior citizens their Social Security or cut their benefits or whatever, basically telling them, ‘Get out of the way and die,’ and the page numbers are cited, if you want to read this in the stimulus bill itself. This is a job-creation stimulus bill that announces this kind of stuff, a national health care czar with a whole bureaucracy? The computerization of all health care records? The federal government in charge of what doctors can do to treat people using ‘guidelines,’ and there are federal penalties for doctors who do not follow the guidelines? These things are not specified yet; that’s going to be left up to the bureaucrats in charge of this new department to come up with.

But it’s crucial that people understand this. Even if this is new information to a lot of you, there are so many things like this that have nothing to do with creating jobs, nothing whatsoever to do with reviving the economy that are laced throughout this debacle, and it is why calls in opposition in Washington are at hundreds-to-one against this, all over the place. And that’s why the Bamster is out there hustling it this week. That’s why the Bamster is out there doing these town meetings and trying to get the public that he can swerve to support this to do so, because it’s in trouble — and the Republicans, again, are faced with a golden opportunity here. They, too, can read what Betsy McCaughey — or better yet, they can read the legislation themselves! They’re the ones voting on it. They can see what’s in here, and they can hold it up and say, ‘This is not stimulus! This has nothing to do with jobs. This is just the exact opposite. This is liberalism. This is government expansion, uncontrolled right here in the stimulus. You are being hoodwinked. You are being fooled.’ Once again, they’re presented with an opportunity.

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