RUSH: This is from The Hill: [The transcript below is updated to reflect the corrections in the erroneous news story.] ‘House Republicans are looking to repeal the healthcare reform law and replace it with one of their own early next year without interrupting two popular parts the administration has already begun to implement. They include a mandate that bars discrimination of pre-existing conditions and a stipulation that allows young people to remain on their parents’ insurance plans until age 26. Incoming Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said Monday that they would do this by passing a GOP healthcare bill at the same time as repeal efforts are underway.’
‘Speaking to more than 100 students at American University, Cantor said, ‘What you will see us do is to push for repeal of the healthcare bill, and at the same time, contemporaneously, submit our replacement bill, that has in it the provisions [barring discrimination due to pre-existing conditions and offering young people affordable care options].’ Cantor stressed that while he supports full repeal of the current law, Republicans share some of the same goals as Democrats, although they propose different ways of achieving them.’
When you demand an insurance company cover patients with preexisting conditions that’s not insurance; that’s welfare. … I think the problem the Republicans had in 1994 after they won was they stopped teaching, meaning they stopped explaining themselves as they went along in ideological ways. They stopped telling people what conservatism is. They stopped explaining this being done because we’re conservatives, and they can’t do that on this one because conservative ideology does not support forcing insurance companies to cover patients with preexisting conditions. We’d be telling people that’s a welfare provision.
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RUSH: If I had kids age 26, if they’re not on the way to protecting themselves, I am ticked off. Damn straight I am. At 26 you ought to be on the road here. You better not be living with me, and you had better be on the road to making your own way in the world, because that’s how you would have been raised. Now, this is what living in Literalville means. Some people prefer Realville. Whatever works for you. But I live in Realville, and a 26-year-old is not a kid. A 26-year-old is not a child. Yeah, it’s my son, but this notion of child ends certainly before age 26. … [M]any people like the idea because of the economic times we live in and the high cost of health insurance, they want their kids to have health care, that it makes total sense to keep their kids on their policy ’til they’re 26. Why not 30? Why not be able to keep your kids on their policy until you die or they die? What’s the magic age here at 26? Do you realize that most people at 26 are not even gonna need health insurance in the real world. Catastrophic, yeah, but every day to day, no, they’re the healthiest among us. Well, if we’re gonna means test Social Security, why not means test health care and so forth?
‘Mr. Limbaugh! Mr. Limbaugh! You’re showing the world just how truly cold you are.’
No, I’m not showing the world how cold I am. I’m illustrating what a bunch of softies the rest of the world’s become. And I know, I know, look, I’m in the minority here, but I’m not trying to get votes. They are. That’s the difference, folks.
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RUSH: [A] majority of Americans — again, just to repeat myself — like the notion of these evil insurance companies being forced to take patients with preexisting conditions and calling it insurance. They like the idea that somebody with a year to live gets insurance, to have it all paid for, coverage paid for, they like it. They think somebody else is gonna pay for it anyway. The Democrats and Obama have made that clear to people. You’re not gonna be paying your own. I guarantee you, if you went out and polled the country, ask them this question: ‘Do you think that the fire insurance company should be required to sell you a policy while your house is burning down,’ and if a majority of the American people said yes, the Republicans would support it? Well, so would the Democrats, too.
So you think that you ought to be able to go out and buy fire insurance for your home after the fire is started? ‘That’s right, Mr. Limbaugh. That’s the only thing that would be fair. Because most people can’t afford the fire insurance before the fire starts.’ Okay. Well, if that happens you’re not gonna be able to buy fire insurance ’cause there’s gonna be nobody around to sell it. They won’t be there. And it’s the same thing with this preexisting condition stuff. We’re not talking insurance here, ’cause there’s no difference. Okay, you go to the doctor and you’re diagnosed with a fatal disease, and the law says, ‘You can go to the insurance company and they can insure you in case you get the disease.’
‘Well, I already got it.’
‘That’s okay. It’s a preexisting condition. They can’t deny you.’
‘Speaking to more than 100 students at American University, Cantor said, ‘What you will see us do is to push for repeal of the healthcare bill, and at the same time, contemporaneously, submit our replacement bill, that has in it the provisions [barring discrimination due to pre-existing conditions and offering young people affordable care options].” Cantor also told the woman, ‘And likewise we want to make sure that someone of your age has the ability to access affordable care, whether it’s under your parents plan or elsewhere.’ They’ve taken ‘the positions that adequately address those problems but done it in a way that we can preserve what’s good about our system without bankrupting this country.’
So, there you have it.
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RUSH: This is Joe in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, nice to have you, sir, on the EIB Network. Welcome.
CALLER: Hey, Rush, thanks for taking my call. You have a great show.
RUSH: Thank you very much, sir.
CALLER: This is on health care. If [Obamacare] gets the adult provision for children age 26 being on their parents’ policy and particularly the preexisting conditions clause, will not that be the death of private health care?
RUSH: How so? Explain yourself to the audience, sir.
CALLER: Well, you know, it’s a matter of, like you said earlier in the show about the house on fire thing, you know, if the house is on fire, and then you run out and get coverage, it’s gonna kill them. They can’t afford —
RUSH: Oh. Oh. Oh.
CALLER: — to cover that.
RUSH: Put ’em out of business because they can’t stay in business. No home insurance outfit could stay in business ensuring the house after the fire starts.
CALLER: Right, exactly.
RUSH: Well, that is the objective of the regime.
CALLER: You think it’s the intention?
RUSH: Of the regime? Yeah, of the Obama bunch, oh yeah, to put privacy insurance out of business, to destroy the private insurance industry? Yeah, no question that’s their objective. He’s said so! He has been saying so since 2002 or 2003. We’ve got the tapes. We have aired the tapes. He told his union buddies back in Chicago he wants to get to single payer but he knows it’s gonna take 10 to 15 years. You gotta do stuff like this. You can’t just do it overnight. The American people won’t accept it overnight but when they have no choice to accept — you know the old story, you throw a stupid frog, sissy frog into boiling water, and it’ll jump right outta there. But you throw a sissy frog in a pot of cold water and turn the heat on, it heats up really slowly, before the sissy frog realizes it’s too late, he’s dead. Okay, namby-pamby, if you don’t like sissy, wuss. I coulda changed it up a little.