RUSH: This is an innocent little story from Robert Pear: ‘Health Plans Must Provide Some Tests at No Cost.’ Wow. Here it comes. Free. Now, listen to me. I’m going to read from the story. ‘The 
White House on Wednesday issued new rules…’ the White House — look at me — the White House issued new rules. We’re talking about health care. The White House issued new rules, by fiat. This is reported as though it’s good; it’s common; it’s exactly what life should be like.
‘The White House on Wednesday issued new rules requiring health insurance companies to provide free coverage for dozens of screenings, laboratory tests and other types of preventive care,’ with the snap of the fingers, the waving of a supposed magic wand Obama required insurance companies to provide free coverage for a bunch of different kinds of screenings and laboratory tests and other types of preventive care. That’s the first sentence. So Obama just forced private sector business, industry, to give away a hunk of their business for free, to give it away. Well, but they can’t. There is no free lunch. Somebody’s going to pay for this, and guess who it is? All of you people who make less than $250,000, thought you were not gonna get a tax increase, guess what, you’re going to join all the rest of everybody else and you’re going to be paying for this, and this is the law now. Obamacare allows this to happen. There are over 243 of these kind of bureaucracies in the financial regulatory reform bill, 243 different bureaucracies or agencies that can issue fatwa’s like this, once it is in place. So if it’s this easy, I mean you snap your fingers and you tell those evil bastards in the insurance business you’re going to start giving away free tests and free screenings, why not just tell Apple to give away the iPhone? I mean you could make a health care case for it. Cell phones cause cancer, right? That’s what they’re trying to prove next.
Why not force Apple to give everybody a new iPhone? Why do you have to pay for gasoline in your car? Why can’t Obama just demand that gas stations and oil companies give everybody a free fill-up every time they pull into the pump? Just because this is a health care business does not mean they don’t need to make money and maintain a profit. So what is happening here is precisely what we all warned you, they’re running the private insurance business out of business. And they can do it because the law was signed into law by Bam, he can just snap his fingers, ‘You’re gonna start providing this stuff free.’ Well, they can’t last doing that. They’ll go belly up. Hello, public option, anyone. My friends, I have just read three lines of this story. It goes on and on and on. You want to hear more? ‘The new requirements –‘ these are not suggestions ‘– the new requirements [mandated by the White House] promise significant benefits for consumers.’ Maybe so, but the thing about this is the majority of us who have health insurance through employers already have most of the costs of these tests covered. That’s going to change, too.
‘The new requirements promise significant benefits for consumers if they take advantage of the services that should now be more readily available and affordable. In general, the government said, Americans use preventive services at about half the rate recommended by doctors and public health experts. The rules will eliminate co-payments, deductibles and other charges for blood pressure, diabetes and cholesterol tests; many cancer screenings; routine vaccinations; prenatal care; and regular wellness visits for infants and children.’ Now, who are these tests in particular going to help most? Let’s go through this list here. Blood pressure, ahem, diabetes, ahem, cholesterol tests, ahem, cancer screenings. I mean, it sounds like union groups to me. The obese, the overweight, union members and some minorities thrown in. ‘Other services that must be offered at no charge –‘ because the White House said so yesterday ‘– include counseling to help people stop smoking; screening and counseling for obesity; and tests for infection with the virus that causes AIDS. … the rules stipulate that no copayments can be charged for tests and screenings.’
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RUSH: How do you screen for obesity? Would somebody explain what ‘obesity screening’ is? It’s a mirror, isn’t it? Maybe some scales? Maybe a scale, a pair of glasses? Some people may have to go a truck stop to get weighed, but what kind of screening do you need for obesity? Now, listen to this. This is from the Wall Street Journal’s version of the story from the New York Times today. Notice this line from the Wall Street Journal piece. Quote: ‘Under the provision, health plans initiated after Sept. 23 must cover preventive health services at no additional cost to the consumer. People who stay on their existing health plans won’t benefit from the change.’ May I translate that for you? This is a way to get you to leave your insurance plan, which we were all promised that we’d be allowed to keep if we wanted to. How long before the ‘free services’ are used to make us conform to what they want us to be? ‘Do you smoke? Are you overweight? Sorry, no longer free.’ So I kid you not. People who stay on their existing health plans beyond September 23rd will not benefit from the change which mandates that insurers cover preventive health services at no additional cost to the consumer. Bye-bye, private insurance. The White House starts the ball rolling yesterday.
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RUSH: Listen to more from this story on the White House mandates. Snap of the fingers yesterday from the White House. From the Wall Street Journal, ‘By 2013,’ that’s just two and a half years from now, ‘the White House says, 88 million Americans will benefit from the changes.’ Meaning, 88 million Americans will be given ‘free’ preventive screenings by their health insurance companies. Somebody’s going to be paying for it. It isn’t going to be the consumer, and it’s gonna get rid of the private insurance industry. So the White House believes that in a mere couple years, 88 million people will have left their existing health care plans because if you don’t leave your existing health care plan, you don’t get the free preventive screenings and services. The only way you can get it is to leave your health care plan.
So the White House thinks 88 million — and that number, by the way, there was a consulting firm, IBD reported what they had said and the Wall Street Journal, that 88 million Americans would leave their health insurance plans. White House refuted it. ‘That’s not true. That’s never going to happen.’ Now the White House is effectively saying it. Here’s more from the Wall Street Journal version of the story. ‘Insurers say the changes won’t be free to consumers since plans will have to raise premiums overall to offset the cost of covering these services. The Obama administration estimates that the changes will increase the cost of premiums by an average of 1.5% a year.’ Well, wait a minute now, who’s paying the premiums and who’s getting the freebies?
Ha. So when the regime says that these services will be ‘free,’ they mean that they will cost everyone with insurance an average increase in payments of 1.5% a year? How is this working out? Even people who won’t be getting the free benefits..? So we’ve got the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, with big stories, how excited they are. Finally, preventive health services and screenings. Finally insurance companies, evil, rotten SOB insurance companies now have to provide it free. And you keep reading. ‘Wait a minute! The premiums are going to go up 1.5% to cover all this.’ Whose premiums? That’s not even the point. The point is, somebody in the White House just decided yesterday to implement this, just snap their fingers. There’s no legislation backing this up — well, other than Obamacare as an umbrella.
But the White House (snaps fingers). The White House, the Obama regime just commanded insurance companies to provide X services free. That is not legal. That is not constitutional. Where does it stop? Why not just tell Steve Jobs, ‘Give away the iPhone 4 now’? Nothing is real.
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RUSH: Long Island, this is Pete. You’re next on the Rush Limbaugh program. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. It’s more than an honor talking to you.
RUSH: Thank you very much, sir. Appreciate that.
CALLER: First time from the beginning I’ve been listening to you, and I hope I listen to you another 50 years.
RUSH: Me, too.
CALLER: I’m very frustrated. The caller about five callers back talking about the Republicans, how they don’t fight and stick up for things. Well, I save articles for my liberal and Democratic friends when they start bashing Bush and the Republicans of how much money they spent. And one of the articles in the Investor’s Business Daily, it’s March 5th edition, I’ll make it quick, it talks about how each party, Republican and Democrat, controlled the House for seven years equally, okay, in different years, like the Democrats controlled from ’92 to ’95, and from 2008 to ’10, Republicans 1999 to 2001 and 2004 to 2007. Okay, but here’s the catch. The Democrat spent an average on the deficit of $619 billion a year, okay?
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: While the Republicans spent $93 billion of this a year. The Democrats totaled $4.3 trillion while the Republicans only spent $651 billion. That’s a disgrace, and we let them get away with it.
RUSH: No, no, no, your Democrat buddies don’t care about Democrat spending. We’re not letting them get away with anything. See, Democrats can spend because they’re spending on poverty and compassion. Republicans spend on the defense budget and to pay off people like Jake Abramoff. Democrat spending is compassionate and it’s a good and so forth, and we’re never gonna win that battle. We don’t have to. Look, the American people don’t like all this, they don’t like the spending; they don’t like the debt. They get that. This is something that they’re seeing up front firsthand. Don’t have to even be told. Pete, thanks for the call.
This is Derek in Philadelphia. You’re next on the EIB Network. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thank you for taking my call.
RUSH: Well, of course.
CALLER: I wanted to say that if Obama’s going to tell insurance companies that they have to give out free tests, which will result in higher premiums —
RUSH: Hmm.
CALLER: — which will result in a change of the terms of your plan —
RUSH: Hmm.
CALLER: — doesn’t that trigger the provision in the health care plan that says if your plan changes, you no longer qualify for private insurance?
RUSH: Yeah, of course.
CALLER: So he just killed health care today.
RUSH: Well, exactly. That’s the whole point. Well, yesterday. That’s when the directive came. Yeah. You’re right. This was the plan all along, it’s to drive people out of the health insurance plans that they currently have. Everybody who was informed on this knew this day was coming. But now that it’s here, and you actually see it manifested and you see just by snapping the fingers the White House tells insurance business, ‘You’re gonna start giving away services for preventive care. You’re gonna give it away.’ And then later in the law, premiums could go up one and a half percent. So somebody’s going to be paying, as is always the case.