RUSH: This is actually kind of interesting to me. Now, I haven’t been able to follow the whole thing because I, of course, have been doing broadcast excellence while Obama’s out there desperately trying to save his flawed plan at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, but I did have a chance to listen to what he’s saying in his town hall now and there’s nothing new in it from what I heard. It’s the same old thing. ‘Well, you will not lose your coverage! If you like your plan, you will not lose it.’ I’m sorry, folks. You will lose it! Eventually you will lose it. And many of you almost instantly after this thing becomes law. The whole point of the ‘public option’ is to entice private sector businesses and insurance companies to drop insurance coverage because how do you compete with an entity that never has to show a profit?
And the federal government never has to show a profit. But this is devious because this man cannot dare tell you the truth. The truth is he wants a single-payer system. He doesn’t want you with private insurance. We’ve got him on tape saying it many times since 2003. He then said, ‘There won’t be any long lines. You will not have to wait in any lines.’ Now, where the hell did that come from? But there’s nothing inspiring here. He’s saying, ‘Well, it’s very scary what people are saying about our plan here, but what’s even more scary is not doing anything.’ Nobody is talking about not doing anything. What people are talking about is saving one-sixth of the US private sector economy as a private sector economy. What people are talking about is saving their liberty. They’re talking about saving their freedom.
There are alternative health care plans out there, many of them. The Republicans in both the House and the Senate have put them forth. They just don’t have the power to get it passed. Nobody is paying any attention to them. So this is the typical straw dog argument. I’ll tell you, the president… He’s unhinged. He’s unraveling here. He’s responding to charges no one has made. They are on defense. The New York Times said it today in a story by Jim Rutenberg. They are defensive about this. They’ve lost control of the debate, and you can tell it in the little amount of time I had to listen. But it’s clear that the people who oppose the bill, who have read it, have hit some home runs here. Because I knew for a fact he’d claim, ‘If you like your coverage, you’re going to be able to keep it.’ Page 16: You won’t.
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RUSH: This town hall meeting the president is conducting is unbelievable. I don’t think he knows what he’s talking about. He just said that his health care plan — which he has never shown us! We have never seen the Obama health proposal. His plan is going to, get this, be pretty much just like what Congress has. You’re going to be able to go to an exchange where there are going to be all these plans and you’ll be able to pick the one you want in addition to a public option. A government plan is going to be thrown in the mix, and we’re doing that to keep the insurance companies honest. Now, my friends, of all the plans that have been proposed that we have seen, I am here to tell you that no such plan exists.
He has described what members of Congress and the Senate, a lot of federal employees have. They do have a smorgasbord of plans and they get to pick whatever one they want but there’s not one of 
them that’s run by the government. They’re all run by the private sector. They’re paid for by you and me but they’re not run by the government. And they’re not going to be able to choose the public option, these members of Congress and certain federal officials. They’re not going to choose it. Then he went to a question. A little girl, early teenage, stood up. Obama said, ‘When do you go back to school?’ She said, ‘September 3rd.’ You know what her question was? When I was walking in, I saw all of these signs opposing health care reform — mean signs, mean signs opposing health care reform.
Why are people against something that will make their lives better, or some such thing as that. And then how can we know what’s true? Now, I’m sorry, folks, 13-year-old, 14, 15, I don’t care. Nothing about that computes. I’ve seen these mean signs? Why are people so opposed to something to help them. How do we know what is true? I almost wish I was carrying this live. I almost wish I had JIPed this. This is very unimpressive. Same plan as Congress? What the hell is he talking about? Nobody’s proposing… For crying out loud, when Congress — there is no section 1233 for Congress where they have to get counseled near the end of life.
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RUSH: I don’t know. This is hard. The president has just said, ‘I’m not promoting a single-payer plan.’ (sigh) I’m very uncomfortable. Let me look at my stack here to see what we have. Cookie, if we don’t have it in the roster, get me 03 and 07. If we do, tell me where they are real quick because I’ve got a lot of paper here in the sound bite roster. We’ll get it. ‘Do you still believe in universal coverage?’ was the question from audience member. He said, ‘I don’t believe… I’m not promoting a single-payer plan.’ (sigh) But he is. He just is. This makes me really uncomfortable. I don’t like thinking these kinds of things about the president of the United States, and I certainly don’t like saying them. (sigh) I just don’t like saying it. It’s not helpful, but it’s true. Matt in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, hi, welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Thank you so much for taking my call.
RUSH: You bet.
CALLER: If I could take a few seconds to thank you personally for something you’re probably not aware of?
RUSH: Sure.
CALLER: I used to be a sales guy and I’ve always wanted to follow my dream to do something else, and it turns out I used to schedule my sales calls around your show and your commercial breaks and things like that and then after hearing you say, ‘More fun than a human being should be allowed to have so many times,’ talking about the struggles, I finally abandoned it. I’m pursuing my dream. I’m pretty successful at it and I gotta give you credit for it.
RUSH: No. Well, give yourself credit. Too many people are afraid to give themselves credit for what they’re good at because they think it’s bragging or it’s somehow not polite. But don’t be afraid to give yourself credit for what you’ve done.
CALLER: Well, it’s not… It’s true, and I realize all the time that there are so many people probably better than I am at what I do, but they just never got to the starting line. I’ve gotten there — and just because I showed up, I’m already ahead of most of them.
RUSH: No, they never got to the starting line or they never tried to get to the starting line. You did. You did. There’s no reason to have any guilt about this.
CALLER: No, it’s not guilt. It’s just I did it and now no one can take it away from me and I love it and you’re part of the reason.
RUSH: Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
CALLER: You got it, buddy. Okay, here’s my point. Do you remember when Obama spoke to the AMA meeting and one of the first things he did out of the box as far as controlling costs and things is he shot down tort reform? He said, ‘It’s too important! You gotta keep people accountable,’ blah, blah, blah. What’s interesting — and we all know why he did that. It’s because the support from the trial lawyers and things like that. What happens when he eventually gets what he wants and Barney Frank and those folks and they get to single payer. The trial lawyer can’t sue anybody. They can’t sue the government. Do the trial lawyers understand that by supporting this guy they are ultimately throwing away their meal ticket?
RUSH: See, I used to think that, too. I used to think, ‘Wait a minute! Once the private insurers are out of there, they’re not going to be able to sue anybody.’ You’re not thinking here. This whole thing is a sop to the trial lawyers and the public sector union bosses.
CALLER: True. True. But once it gets to the point of costs, when costs become crazy high and they see these continual lawsuits under the John Edwardses of the world continue to get three hundred-million-dollar settlements, they’re going to say, ‘Wait a minute. We just got to X that off the balance sheet. You can’t do this anymore. That’s it.’ Do you agree?
RUSH: Who’s going to be saying you can’t sue anymore?
CALLER: The government-run option people. The people who are in charge of the government-run health care plan are going to say, ‘We can’t afford this potential liability.’
RUSH: No, they’re not going to be suing the government. You can’t sue the government.
CALLER: Right. That’s my point. The trial lawyers will have no more medical malpractice.
RUSH: Nah, they’ll sue the doctors.
CALLER: But aren’t the doctors on the government payroll now?
RUSH: Not technically.
CALLER: Okay. Well, do you think it will always be that way? Because then once they’re not on the government payroll, then they’ll have options, and the last thing the government wants is them to have options.
RUSH: One thing I know is if the Democrat Party ever takes away the option of the plaintiff’s bar to behave as they have been, that’s the end of all money and support for the Democrat Party from the plaintiff’s bar. And since money is the mother’s milk of politics, that ain’t going to happen. That’s no more likely than Obama telling this guy Stern that runs the SEIU, ‘Screw you, buddy! I don’t need you anymore.’ It ain’t going to happen.
CALLER: I just thought it was possibly the Law of Unintended Consequences with the trial lawyers being shortsighted to support this.
RUSH: No, no, no.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: I understand your thinking about unintended consequences, but the unintended consequences of this are the bankruptcy of the country, the end of the goose that lays the golden egg. There isn’t going to be the money for any of this. The unintended consequences are going to be the absolute revolts when families are told, ‘Sorry, your kid or your grandmother, we don’t have the money. Here’s the pain pill.’
CALLER: Do you think this could be undone?
RUSH: Well, there’s gotta be something else to replace it. Once you take something out of the private sector, it doesn’t exist there anymore. So you just can’t say, ‘Okay, government-run health care is over.’ What do people do then? I mean, there’s gotta be a doctor’s office or something. It would be tough. This is crucial. This is very important.
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RUSH: The president of the United States is stumbling and foundering badly. He’s now explaining he’s going to pay for all of this by limiting the deductions that people like him, who make more than $250,000 a year, are able to take. This is right out of the campaign. This isn’t even elegant. This is desperation we’re seeing.
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RUSH: I am-flat-out stunned at what I have been able to listen to of the Obama town hall meeting in New Hampshire. I have… (drumming fingers) I’m literally stunned at the pathetic nature of this. It is responsive. Obama is responsive to nothing in the current debate about this. He reminds me of the way he was in the campaign when Hillary got close. Remember during Operation Chaos toward the end of the Democrat primaries when Hillary was getting close? This is not presidential today. This is a campaign appearance that has no relationship to any reality on the ground now vis-a-vis where our health care debate is. ‘Well, I think we can pay for health care with the Bush tax cuts. Get rid of Bush tax cuts and pay the health care that way! I think we can pay for health care by, uh, we, uh, umm, umm just eliminate tax deductions for people like me who make over $230,000 and, uh, uh, there are a lot of cost savings of Medicare.’
We’re not going to cut Medicare, I thought. None of this relates. I just watched a woman ask a question that took five minutes! It seemed like it. It was three minutes to ask the question. I’ll tell you what’s missing, if you see any sound bites of this (or if you happen to be watching it now and listening to me do the play-by-play), what you’re watching here as a salesman sell a product that doesn’t exist! We need to see the page numbers on the bill that supports every claim that he is making today. What he doesn’t understand is, more and more people don’t trust him or the Democrats to do this, and he’s not responding to that. He’s just citing the same old campaign rhetoric. We need to see the numbers of the pages, Mr. President!
When you say X, Y, and Z is going to happen, you need to show us. Show us the plan. Where does it say that? He’s out there selling Barack Obama, not health care. He’s out there saying: Trust me. But after the stimulus bill, see, there’s a new reality. ‘Trust me’ doesn’t work anymore. Almost three million people have lost their jobs since he took action to create jobs. Just in the past six months he’s demonized doctors. He can’t say ‘trust me’ now. He’s demonizing insurance industry. He can’t say ‘trust me.’ He’s destroyed the federal budget, created this massive deficit. He can’t say ‘trust me.’ He can’t get away with ‘trust me,’ and that’s what he’s doing. It’s so out of touch, it’s unbelievable. He’s failed to deliver on jobs. He can’t say ‘trust me.’
And when he says in the past he wants a single-payer system and today he says, ‘I don’t want a single-payer system.’ He can’t then say ‘trust me.’ This is like somebody selling you a car they don’t have, selling you a car you can’t test-drive, selling you a car you can’t even see. It’s like buying a company with no contract. You’re just relying on the seller’s promises, and the seller’s promises address none of the concerns that have been raised by people who have seen the company. So here, let me illustrate. This is Obama this afternoon, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and an audience member. ‘Mr. President, you’ve been quoted over the years when you were a senator that you were essentially a supporter of a universal plan. I’m beginning to see that you’ve changed that.’ Now, this… (laughing) None of this is real. None of these questions are real. ‘I’m beginning to see you’re changing on that. Do you honestly believe that? Do you still support a universal plan, or are you open to the private industry still being maintained?’
OBAMA TODAY: I have not said that I was a single-payer supporter because frankly we historically have had a employer-based system in this country, that private insurers.
RUSH: Stop the tape! ‘I have not said I was a single-payer supporter…’ Here, 2007, a little over two years ago, March 2007, Service Employees International Union Health Care Forum.
OBAMA 2007: My commitment is to make sure that we’ve got universal health care for all Americans by the end of my first term as president. I would hope that we can set up a system that allows those who can go through their employer to access a federal system or a state pool of some sort, but I don’t think we’re going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately. There’s going to be potentially some transition process. I can envision a decade out or 15 years out or 20 years out.
RUSH: Okay. Now, listen to again the beginning of Obama today.
OBAMA TODAY: I have not said that I was a single-payer supporter because frankly we historically have had a employer-based system in this country with private insurers.
RUSH: Stop the tape. ‘I have not said I was a single-payer supporter.’ Here’s 2003, AFL-CIO conference campaigning for the US Senate.
OBAMA 2003: I happen to be a proponent of single-payer, universal health care plan.
AUDIENCE: (applause)
OBAMA 2003: I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, is spending 14% — 14% of its gross national product on health care — cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that’s what Jim’s talking about when he says, ‘Everybody in, nobody out,’ a single payer health care plan, universal health care plan. That’s what I’d like to see but, as all of you know —
RUSH: Stop the tape. There it is: ‘I happen to be a proponent of single-payer, universal health care plan. … [A] single-payer, universal health care plan. That’s what I’d like to see.’ Today, President Obama…
OBAMA TODAY: I have not said that I was a single-payer supporter because frankly we historically have had a employer-based system in this country with private insurers.
RUSH: Stop the tape. Mr. President, you can’t do this and have people trust you. The power of your cult-like appeal is gone. You can’t destroy jobs after telling people you’re going to create and restore jobs and then say, ‘Trust me.’ You can’t say you’ve never said you were a single-payer supporter when we have sound bites of you advocating it, promising it to your most fervent supporters and then say ‘trust me.’ You have lost the trust. (interruption) Oh, I’m stoking the flames? I’m stoking the flames? (interruption) There I go again stoking the flames? There I go again? I’m stoking the flames here? (interruption) What, I’m supposed to just shut up and forget what I heard in 2007 and 2003? Now, this next bite, I have a comment but after you hear it.
OBAMA TODAY: I do hope that we will talk with each other and not over each other. Where we disagree, let’s disagree over things that are real, not these wild misrepresentations that bear no resemblance to anything that’s actually been proposed.
FOLLOWERS: (applause)
OBAMA TODAY: ‘Cause the way politics works sometimes is that people who want to keep things the way they are will try to scare the heck outta folks and they’ll create bogeyman out there that just aren’t real.
RUSH: Now, one again, these are not ‘wild misrepresentations.’ People are showing up, Mr. President, with the House bill, and they’re reading from it and they’re asking their representatives and senators about it. ‘[T]alk with each other but not over each other. Where we disagree, let’s disagree over what’s real…’ I’ve never seen this man be so disconnected from reality. He has failed and his people have failed to understand. This is not the Barack Obama of the campaign that’s going to lower the sea levels and raise the mountains and freeze the snow and the glaciers and whatever else. It’s a whole different reality not even being acknowledged. Now, here again, this next bite. This is Obama on his plan. But he doesn’t have a plan. He needs to be out there with every claim he’s making saying, ‘Here it is, Page XXX, whatever it is of my plan. This is what it says.’ He can’t do that because he can’t have a plan yet. He says…
OBAMA TODAY: All we want to do is set up a set of options so that if you don’t have health insurance or you’re underinsured, you can have the same deal that members of Congress have, which is they can look at a menu of options — we’re calling it an exchange, but it’s basically just a menu of different health care plans — and you’ll be able to select the one that suits your family best. And I do think that having a public option as part of that will keep the insurance companies honest because if they’ve got a public plan out there that they’ve gotta compete against, as long as it’s not being subsidized by taxpayers —
RUSH: Golly!
OBAMA TODAY: — then that will give you some acceptance of what sort of a good bargain for basic health care would be.
RUSH: This is unreal! This is, frankly, absurd. It’s beyond pathetic. ‘All we want to do is set up a set of options so that if you don’t have health insurance you can have the same deal members of Congress get’? That’s what’s new. That is the new. He’s saying that we’re all going to get the same options Congress gets — and, folks, there is no plan anywhere that says that any time, ever. But to keep the insurance companies honest we’re going to put a public option in there? I just… (stammering) I’m not often speechless. This is amateurish. This is… Well, of course I’ll give the public option ‘not subsidized by taxpayers,’ not subsidized by taxpayers. Of course none of… This is incoherent. ‘I want to set up a series of options so that if you don’t have health insurance you can have the same deal that members of Congress have’? Do I dare go any further with this? Yeah. A child stands up and asks a question. Ah, this is the little 13-year-old. Never mind. Folks, we already talked about it. I can’t… I don’t know. This is… I feel like I’m dealing with somebody running for high school class president here, except he’s not. This is dangerous.
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RUSH: I tell you, it’s time to bring back the teleprompter. It’s time to bring back the teleprompter or the Son of Teleprompter since the First Teleprompter crashed and died, maybe committed suicide. But even on PMSNBC the first two guests just trashed this. ‘Ah, the questions weren’t hard enough. They were too easy! He was rambling. It went on and on and on.’ Here, I’m going to play these two sound bites. I decided that I would play ’em during the break. It’s the 13-year-old little girl. I’m guessing her age. She’s a little girl. She stands up and says this.
LITTLE GIRL: As I was walking in, I saw a lot of signs outside saying mean things about reforming health care. How do kids know what is true, and why do people want a new system that helps more of us?
RUSH: Okay, here’s Obama’s answer to that.
OBAMA: Well, uh, uh… The, uhhhh… I’ve seen some of those signs. Let me just be specific about some things that I’ve been hearing lately that, eh, we just need to dispose of here. The rumor that’s been circulating a lot lately is this idea that somehow the House of Representatives voted for death panels that will, uhhh, basically pull the plug on grandma because we decided that we don’t… It’s too expensive to let her live anymore. I guess this arose out of a provision in one of the House bills that allowed Medicare to reimburse people for consultations about end-of-life care, setting up living wills, the availability of hospice, et cetera. Somehow it’s gotten spun into this idea of death panels. I am not in favor of that.
RUSH: Mike, find me the ABC quote about the pain pill, grandmother, 105 and so forth. I’ve got these sheets of paper all over and I can’t tell which is which here. But let me tell you something, folks. This little girl stands up and says, ‘As I was walking in, I saw a lot of signs outside saying mean things about reforming health care. How do kids know what is true, and why do people not want a new system that helps more of us?’ and he starts telling people that he’s not going to kill grandma. (Good. Stand by. It’s coming up soon.) Now, if Obama takes that question and says that he is not going to kill grandma, then he’s in trouble and he knows he’s in trouble. If he has to say, ‘We don’t have to worry about death panels…’ He was also asked about the snitch website and he admitted there’s a snitch website and he said we don’t have to worry about it!
It’s not that you’ve been misled about what the site is. ‘We have a snitch website…’ (laughing) Well, he didn’t say ‘snitch.’ We have our snitch website but we don’t even need to worry about it! Ah, this talk about death panels. ‘I’m not in favor of that’? What a concrete reassuring denial: I’m not in favor of death panels. Well, Mr. President, there are enough people that are, if this answer doesn’t quite persuade them because you can’t get by on ‘trust me’ anymore. Let’s go back, June 24th, ABC. You just heard his answer here. ‘I’ve heard some of these death panels, pull the plug on grandma. We decide it’s too expensive let her live anymore. I guess this arose out of a provision in one of the House bills that allowed Medicare to reimburse people in consultation, end-of-life care.’ He’s finally gotten up to speed on this. He doesn’t have a bill. He’s reading the House bill. But woman stands up: ‘Are you going to take into account my mother’s will to live?’
OBAMA: I don’t think that we can make judgments based on people’s spirit. Uh, that would be, uh, a pretty subjective decision to be making. I think we have to have rules that, uh, 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’re going to have to make. But understand that those decisions are already being made in one way or another. If they’re not being made under Medicare and Medicaid, they’re being made by private insurers. At least we can let doctors know — and your mom know — that you know what? Maybe this isn’t going to help. Maybe you’re better off, uh, not having the surgery but taking, uhhh, the painkiller.
RUSH: But we’re not going to have death panels. He’s not in favor of death panels. Will somebody tell me…? Mr. President, you’re using the word ‘we’ here. ‘We’ give her the pain pill. ‘We’ make end-of-life decisions and ‘we’ give them the pain pill. Maybe ‘we’ don’t mess with the surgery. But he’s not in favor. Look, folks, I’m telling you. I cannot emphasize it enough. This little girl didn’t even ask about death panels! This little girl didn’t ask about anything. She asked about ‘mean signs’ and she didn’t define what they were. When you, as president of the United States, have to tell a country that you are not in favor of death panels and that you are not going to pull the switch on grandma, you have lost control of this. ‘No, don’t worry about that! Those are all lies. I’m not going to pull the plug on grandma!’
To me, this is profound. This is United States of America. The president of the United States had to tell the people in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, that he’s not going to pull the plug on grandma! That that’s even something this government would contemplate and that people have a fear about that they would have to ask about… This little girl didn’t even ask about it. Now, this was at the end of his opening comments. Cut 40. This happened about half an hour ago. This is 1:50 p.m. Eastern time. It was about ten minutes before this town hall meeting ended. Listen. I want to set this up. This is only six seconds so you have to listen fast. This is a man who is on a tear to convince every one of us that only the federal government can do health care fair and right and good and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Only the federal government! The only entity that can handle the depression, the recession — the only entity that can get jobs booming again — is the federal government. And he actually said this 35 minutes ago.
OBAMA: If you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. It’s the Post Office that’s always havin’ problems.
RUSH: Now, I’m going to have to get the transcript. I just told Cookie, ‘Find that phrase.’ She did a keyword search and found it. I don’t know what the context of this is. ‘If you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems.’ Now, that line alone by itself and out of context does not jibe with trying to say the government’s the only entity that can do anything, when you stop and think if. So I will find the context of this in hopes of having it make sense. Now, the statement alone does make sense, just by itself: ‘UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems.’ That’s true. There’s no question he told the truth about that, but it doesn’t advance his cause of having the government run health care. Maybe he was saying insurance companies are not doing well, HMOs are not doing well. I don’t want to guess. I don’t want to surmise.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: All right, I have the context now on Obama and this UPS-FedEx comment. He was saying that the public option — the government option in health care, — will not put private insurance out of business, that they can compete with the government. And that’s when he said…
OBAMA: If you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. It’s the Post Office that’s always havin’ problems.
RUSH: Now, wait a second. This is supposed to dazzle us with his brilliance and intelligence. The Post Office is a losing proposition. It is running a deficit the other day there was a story they might have to close 100 Post Offices. Maybe it was more than that, but at least a hundred Post Offices around the country. ‘UPS and FedEx are doing just fine.’ Yeah, but I haven’t heard you talking about squeezing UPS or FedEx profits. I haven’t heard you start demonizing UPS or FedEx. Let’s make this analogy worthwhile. If you wanted government-run overnight delivery, you’d be out there demonizing UPS and FedEx. He’s not going to do it because UPS is a big union organization and so forth. So what do we have to look forward to here, with this analogy? ‘Hey, the private sector can compete. Why, UPS, FedEx, think about it! They’re doing just fine. The Post Office sucks.’ So the government-run health care option is going to suck, and private options are going to make it a money loser? All the while it’s going to be deficit neutral! Specter said that today, going to be deficit neutral. It’s not going to cost us any new money. They’re at the point now where they’re literally grabbing globs of excrement, throwing it up against the wall, and hoping some of it sticks. That’s what this has become. That’s how much they have lost control of this. All right, who’s been waiting the longest? It’s White Lake, Michigan. Steve, hello. Welcome to the EIB Network, sir. Great to have you here.
CALLER: Mega dittos, Rush. I really appreciate you taking my call.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: No, I didn’t tell the screener this, but my daughter is 13 years old, and that is the base of my call because, you know, our kids are so smart. They see clearly what needs to be said, and the other night my 13-year-old had asked me. She said, ‘Will, I get the same lifesaving treatment as mom did when she was just 28 years old?’ You know, just floored me, I just had to take a pause and a deep breath.
RUSH: All right, where did your 13-year-old daughter even hear enough information to ask you this question? Where did she hear this?
CALLER: Well, watching Fox News. She gets up every morning. She’s used to doing that before she goes to school, so she still does it now, and she just watches the media. What’s concerning to her is what they’re talking about, you know, the Obama health care plan — which really I think, you know, it should be known as the, ‘No Child Left Behind Us.’ There’s always a double meaning behind everything Obama says. At first you think, ‘Well, yeah, No Child Left Behind Us. That’s great,’ but then sit back and look and think, ‘Well, gosh, there is going to be a lot of kids who have genetic issues that they don’t fit specifics. You have to be specific in a government program to say it is worthy for us to do treatment,’ and my life would have been one of those statistics. At 28, she would have passed away if she did not get the treatment. It was a doctor’s decision based on the information he saw to say, ‘Let’s get a colonoscopy done.’
RUSH: Who was paying for this? You have an insurance policy?
CALLER: A PPOM.
RUSH: So your fear is that when the government is in charge of this, that procedure would not have been approved?
CALLER: Oh, absolutely.
RUSH: Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Why? I want to hear from you. Why ‘absolutely’ it wouldn’t have been approved?
CALLER: Because her brother who was under 40 years old at the time, worked at the Pentagon, under a government health plan, and we had to submit all the documentation of my wife’s procedure showing that they were precancerous polyps when you’re not supposed to have a colonoscopy until you’re age 50 by all recommendations and standards right now. Well, you know, the statistics were not working in his favor. He’s under 40 years old. So, with the government plan he was under, all the doctors were saying, ‘That’s just impossible. We don’t believe you. That’s ridiculous. She couldn’t have precancerous polyps.’
RUSH: Okay so you have a legitimate reason for believing that.
CALLER: Absolutely. This was a real story. This is not one of these false misrepresentations out there. That’s why we feel so… I get so miffed and feel just so disrespected.
RUSH: What was that, you get so ‘miffed’?
CALLER: Miffed!
RUSH: Yeah?
CALLER: Yeah. I am miffed at the actual accusations out there. The left is saying that we are using misrepresentation. We know.
RUSH: Let me tell you what’s happened here. There’s a reason for this, and it’s not all that complicated. I refer to this frequently. Back when I started this program in 1988, these people — the Democrat Party, for the most part, and most of the mainstream media — had a monopoly on not only what was reported, but what was not reported. They controlled the news cycle. The New York Times determined most of the stories that would be covered in the evening news on ABC, CBS, and NBC, that night. The New York Times was the bible, and they had this monopoly where they controlled it. They’ve lost that monopoly now. In 1988, CNN was the only cable network out there, along with three networks, the newspapers and magazines. And now look. They have lost control of it. And because they had so many years of control without being challenged on what they believed, they have never had to toughen up.
They have never had to actually figure out a way to persuade people because they never had to. They controlled it. But now they’re not trusted. They’re not universally trusted. There will never, ever be another Walter Cronkite. There just won’t be. There are too many places you can go now and see that’s what’s happening to these guys in the State-Run Media. They’re floundering away in there, too, because they’re still doing it the same old way. They’re just saying, ‘You got a Democrat in the White House? Okay, we repeat. We don’t report.’ But they’re not succeeding in shaping public opinion as they used to be able to, and that’s just got ’em bugged to no end. So Obama… Obama wouldn’t know tough press coverage. I don’t know if Obama could handle one week of the kind of press coverage I get, for example. He’s never had that.
And I think his discombobulation today and his whole administration… This was childlike amateur today, this health care town hall. It was responsive to nothing current in the debate. It was as though there’s not six months of an Obama administration with real things that have happened. It was as though we’re still in the promise stage and we believe every promise and we believe because of the power of that personality that whatever is promised is going to happen. But there’s six, seven months of reality now. We know it ain’t true. There is reason to doubt. And today, he’s out there assuring us that he’s not going to pull the plug on grandma. One more. What did I do with it? I got things pouring in here so fast. Let’s see. I’m looking for cut 44, and I know I got cut 44. Ah, the snitch site. I wanted you to hear this. This is a question. ‘I’m a skeptic. Thank you Mr. President, for coming. I’m one of the people that turned myself in on the White House web page the other day for being a skeptic of this bill.’
OBAMA: This is another example of how, uhhh, the — the media ends up just completely distorting what’s taken place. What we’ve said is that if somebody has… If you get an e-mail from somebody that says, for example, ‘Obamacare is creating a death panel,’ forward us the e-mail and we will answer the question that’s raised in the e-mail. Suddenly, on some of these news outlets, this is being portrayed as, ‘Obama is collecting an enemies list!’
FOLLOWERS: (laughter)
OBAMA: Now, come on, guys. I… You know, here I am trying to be responsive to questions that are being raised out there!
RUSH: There’s a way to do it. At a town hall like this you address those questions and you show us page by page where the people making these claims are wrong. But if you send a note to the White House, to the government, the government website, that has to be archived. They have to know who you are. So… Well, he admits the snitch website exists; it’s just not a snitch website.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, about this snitch website, Obama says here: ‘If you get an e-mail from somebody that says, for example, ‘Obamacare is creating a death panel,’ forward us the e-mail and we will answer the question that’s raised in the e-mail.’ Why forward the e-mail? So if you get an e-mail from me that says ‘Obama wants to create death panels,’ you are being instructed to forward my e-mail to the snitch website. You could just as easily say, ‘I received an e-mail that said that there were going to be death panels.’ They want the e-mail! They want the forwarded e-mail. By the way, the Post Office is now mulling closing 700 offices, Post Office stores around the country that might close. Now it’s 700.