RUSH: Yes, I know, it’s Open Line Friday, and that means phone calls. So we’re gonna start. To Orlando with Ron. Great to have you on the program, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Hello, Rush. Dittos, Rush. Thank you for taking my call.
RUSH: You bet, sir.
CALLER: And I’ll get right to my question here. I know we can’t repeal health care outright, but the approach I’ve been hearing is people want to defund parts of it, that’s all they feel we can do right now, which is fine, you know, let’s go ahead and do that, let’s defund what we can. But they also might try to repeal, to make a statement, and this will force Barack Obama to veto it. But to me it seems a better approach would be for the Republicans to propose a replacement bill, say, ‘Here’s our ideas and let’s have the debate we should have had. Let’s find the common ground and actually put a bill together, put it out there.’ I’m not talking about compromise. We’re talking about common ground here, something that, you know, the moderate Dems might be able to embrace.
RUSH: Okay, we’ve got the Democrat health care bill, all right? We know what it is.
CALLER: Correct.
RUSH: Would you tell me what in it you want to compromise with? What part of it do you want to keep?
CALLER: Well, there’s things like that, you know, once you have your insurance, that if you get sick you can’t be canceled, things like that, there’s some things that not necessarily what’s in that bill that we want to keep, but we do know that there can be improvements to health care, so let’s put out —
RUSH: Yeah, but you don’t accept their premise. Look, that is the fastest way for Republicans to squander everything they have won is to start talking about, ‘Well, let’s repeal and replace. Let’s tinker around the margin of this thing. We have a pretty good framework here. We know that health care needs to be reformed. Let’s find some things in this boondoggle that we like, like premiums going down, kids getting covered ’til their 26.’ All of that’s a bunch of BS. No premiums are going down. The preexisting condition stuff — (sigh) — patience, Rush, patience. Preexisting condition coverage is not possible. It’s not insurance. It’s welfare. The idea of requiring insurance companies to cover people for preexisting conditions is a recipe for driving them out of business. The whole point of the Democrat health care bill is to drive the private sector insurance and as much of private sector health care out of business as possible so that it has no place to go other than the federal government.
Repeal and replace is not the thing to do. The way to go after this, there are a number of things to do here, is you make the Democrats defend this. I’m hearing from all kinds of people saying it would be a waste of time to put a repeal bill up there. No, it won’t, make ’em defend it. You propose a repeal bill as often as you can, have debates on the floor of the House and make the Democrats defend it. The American people don’t want it. Health care is a large reason why the Democrats lost, so make the Democrats go to the floor of the House every day to defend it. I warned these Blue Dogs, I warned them, ‘If you guys vote for this, you are dead,’ and they’re dead. They’re all gone. Every damn one of them who voted for health care and had their voters reminded they voted for health care, they are gone. They lost.
They have subpoena power. Bring up the bureaucrats who are going to be in charge of implementing. Bring up Sebelius and say, ‘How are you going to implement this?’ Go to page X, 2,010, and go to where it says ‘as the secretary may determine’ and say, ‘How are you going to determine?’ Make them defend this every day. The campaign, the election for 2012, starts now. You make Obama defend it. We don’t compromise with these people on their debacle. We make them defend it so that they lose in a landslide two years from now.
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RUSH: I’m gonna respond even more to the caller. ‘Why don’t we pick out the good things we like and compromise and replace the stuff we don’t like?’ The government simply has — I’m talking premise here, now — the government has no right to tell insurance companies who to cover and how. The government has no right to demand of us, as individuals, that we buy insurance. They don’t have the right. We’re gonna litigate that. That is a constitutional question. Parts of this bill are unconstitutional. They don’t have any right to tell insurance companies who to cover and how, like preexisting conditions. Look at this, even the AARP is gonna have to jack up their insurance rates for their employees. ‘AARP Raises Costs for Employees’ Insurance Plans — AARP’s endorsement helped secure passage of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul. Now the seniors’ lobby is telling its employees their insurance costs will rise partly as a result of the law. In an e-mail to employees, AARP says health care premiums will increase by 8 percent to 13 percent next year.’ Well, what was all this malarkey about everybody’s premiums reduced $2,500 that Obama said?
AARP employee health care premiums up by 8 percent to 13 percent next year because of rapidly rising medical costs. Well, now, how’s that hope and change working out for you? It’s not the rapid rising medical costs. It is Obamacare. It’s the administrative cost that is causing premiums to go up. You know how I know this? Doctors, hospitals, and drug companies are not getting more money. That’s not why premiums are going up. That’s not why costs are going up. They’re not getting rich. Administrative costs are going up due to the government regulations and Obamacare. ‘AARP adds that it’s changing copayments and deductibles to avoid a 40 percent tax on high-cost health plans that takes effect in 2018 under the law.’ This is a bunch that supported this crazy scheme. They’re changing their copayments and deductibles to avoid a 40 percent tax increase on high cost health plans, the Cadillac plans, the rich, they’re gonna pay more because they can, it’s not fair, they should have better insurance coverage so they’re gonna pay through the nose for it.
For crying out loud, here, ask the AARP how long they’re gonna be able to sell their Medicare Advantage plans. So subpoena power, that’s where the Republicans have a gold mine here. Bring every bureaucrat involved in this up there and explain himself: ‘Well, how did you arrive at this before you wrote the bill? What does this mean in the bill? Your own speaker said we have to pass this before we know what’s in it. Okay, it’s passed. Would you explain to us here on the committee exactly why this provision is here and how does it work, and what’s its objective?’ You can have an effective government shutdown just by having these people come up and explain the health care bill. You couldn’t explain this in two years if you tried. But you could get a head start on it.
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RUSH: Here’s Scott in Chicago. I’m glad you waited, sir, I really am, and thank you.
CALLER: I appreciate it. Thanks so much.
RUSH: You bet.
CALLER: And, by the way, ultimate mega health care entrepreneur dittos to you, sir. Turn the volume up on the microphone on the EIB mic a little louder because I don’t think Lindsey Graham is getting a clear signal.
RUSH: (silence)
CALLER: Are you there?
RUSH: Yeah, yeah. I just turned the volume up.
CALLER: (laughing) I had an idea about jobs, Rush.
RUSH: Yeah?
CALLER: Very simple. There’s about ten million of us like-minded, small business owner entrepreneurs in the United States. All we need to do is, Mr. Obama, remove the yoke from our neck and the shackles from our ankle and we will hire one employee each, and we’ll create ten million new jobs in no time. That’s how we create jobs. No more government jobs.
RUSH: No, no, no, no, no. What Obama’s gonna do is he wants you to ‘invest’ in new infrastructure and he wants you to invest in green energy technology. He wants to give you a tax credit to invest in new equipment.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: That’s what he thinks is going to cause you to hire new employees.
CALLER: Well, his health care bill is removing the competition from health care, and it’s making it so that only major hospitals hire and not entrepreneurs, and we need competition back in health care just like we need less policy so that all of us entrepreneurs can get back to doing what we do best — and that’s hiring new people.
RUSH: He doesn’t want you doing that. He doesn’t want competition; he wants to wipe it out. He wants the government to be the only entity that people go to for their health care.