RUSH: All right. My staff once again thinks that I have stepped in it big time and that I essentially have lost touch with you, the, quote, unquote, average American member of the audience in my references to bankruptcy vis-a-vis getting sick. I will deal with this in just a moment.
First, a couple of observations. Barack Obama. We’ve gone from Obama lowering the oceans, which he promised to do, to now lowering our expectations and furthering a fear not rooted in reality. And that’s what bankruptcy because of getting sick is: a fear not rooted in reality. I understand the fear is real and I understand people live with the fear every day. I was just giving an example. “Imagine your kid needs a kidney and your health insurance doesn’t provide it because health insurance companies are mean SOBs, and you have to sell your house, which you would do to find a kidney for your child.”
I calmly replied, “Can you tell me the last time somebody sold their house to buy a kidney?”
“That’s not what I mean. I’m talking about the fear. Besides, people don’t own houses anymore because they’re essentially underwater.”
I said, “Can you tell me the last time somebody sold their house to buy a kidney?”
“Well, there won’t be any houses and there won’t be any kidneys if — “
“Can you tell me the last time somebody sold their house to buy a kidney?”
“It’s the fear, Rush, it’s the fear.”
And who created this fear? The Democrat Party. And what’s the purpose of the fear? The purpose of the created fear is to paralyze you and to get you to subliminally agree with the downsizing of your life, the downsizing of your expectations, the downsizing of your dreams. They want health care passed because they want to control every breath you take. And they want to scare you into accepting it by telling you that you are one illness away from bankruptcy. Meanwhile, when is the last time that happened? Now, I’m sure in a country this large, people can cite me examples where people have been destroyed financially or severely harmed financially because of an illness not covered by health insurance.
Is it the norm in this country or is it a fear? Well, it’s clearly not the norm. It might become the norm if these people succeed in getting this monstrosity implemented because guess who’s gonna ultimately be in charge of whether your kid gets the kidney whether you can pay for it or not? The secretary of Health and Human Services is gonna be in charge of determining whether or not your kid gets a kidney in this example. In the meantime, they hit you every day with this fear: bankruptcy because you get sick. Obama just did it. That’s what the sound bite’s all about from January 25th. (imitating Obama) “You want to put in the work. The idea is you should be able to raise a family and own a home and not go bankrupt because you got sick.”
Who is going bankrupt because they get sick? Isn’t it true that we hear stories in this country of great valor involving the medical community? Aren’t most of the stories we hear about involving good works and good deeds by people living in communities in dire circumstances coming together to help the aggrieved? It’s not normal. It’s not the rule of thumb that people go bankrupt in this country because they get sick. They want you to think it is, and they want you to think it could happen to you tomorrow, and that’s why you’ll give up a little bit of your freedom and that’s why you’ll sacrifice a little bit of your liberty and that’s why you’ll sit there and eagerly pay higher taxes to make sure you don’t go bankrupt if you get sick. That’s right, the government will protect you from that.
I’m not denying the fear is real. I’m not denying that people base their lives on it. It’s to me a crying shame. It’s a crying shame. This is the kind of stuff totalitarian regimes do, soft despotism, soft tyranny. This is not bludgeoning you over the head. This is working on you for years and years and years and exploiting a natural fear. What could be a greater fear than your child getting very sick. You’d do anything to stop that, including give up everything you’ve got to Obama or the government. They’re exploiting that, and they’ve created a fear that isn’t rooted in reality. Federal law is you get treated in this country, emergency room or what have you.
Now, I’ve had a guy looking for an example, Google search, since this all started, I’ve had a guy looking for an example of somebody selling a house to buy a kidney. No, no. I’m not gonna let this go. I’m told I’m out of touch. I’m the one in touch with reality. I don’t have the fear and it’s not because of anything financial. It’s just I know liberals. I know how they work. I do not allow them — I mean, they scare me in other ways. They scare me by having this stuff work on other people. That’s how I get scared. I am terribly frightened by how easily they are able to get inside people’s heads and turn them into squishy mush.
I am frightened of how easy liberals get into people’s heads and convince them to give up their freedom and their security and everything else for an imagined crisis, one that doesn’t happen. So I had this guy out there looking for an example, somebody who sold a house to buy a kidney. (interruption) You know what I mean. Now I didn’t mean buy a kidney. You know exactly what I mean. To pay for the transplant surgery, whatever, you still have to get the kidney. The point is we found something in the San Francisco Examiner.
A 17-year-old high school student did sell a kidney to buy an iPad. Yep, Google search, medical bankruptcy, 105 million hits, medical bankruptcy, 105 million results. From the National Center for Policy Analysis, July 8, 2009: “US Medical Bankruptcies a Myth. The idea that large numbers of Americans are declaring bankruptcy due to medical expenses is a myth. Therefore, the introduction of government-run health insurance in the United States will do nothing to reduce personal bankruptcies, concludes a new study by the Fraser Institute.” This is a think tank. Went out and looked at it.
But a 17-year-old high school student in the San Francisco Examiner in, what was the date, this has to be recent, iPad’s only two or three years old, sold a kidney to buy an iPad. You can sell a kidney. Somebody bought a kidney. My only point here is that we’ve got a guy downsizing people’s dreams. Try that with your child. You ask your child, “Hey, little Johnny, what do you want to be?” Let’s say your kid tells you he wants to be a trained physician. “No, Johnny, you can’t do that.” “Why?” “You’ll never be able to.” In fact, do we not all know of parents who continually beat their kids down? “You can’t do that, who do you think you are? You’re never gonna be good enough to do that.” That’s what Obama’s doing here. Obama’s telling us we have to learn to deal with our own limitations.
The problem is it’s his limitations being forced on us that he is attempting to replace our own dreams with. And our dreams are none of his business. He has made our dreams his business and his purpose is to downsize our dreams, our hopes, our expectations, and the techniques they use to do this are fear, loathing, frighten, scare, intimidate. I’ll tell you what. Instead of lowering the oceans, how about we raise our expectations and throw him out of office? And then we enjoy the oceans instead of feeling like we can’t even enjoy that, can’t even enjoy the oceans.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I’m gonna tell you: Normal people are more likely to go bankrupt not being able to pay their taxes than because they lose a body part or an organ. You check it out. How many people go bankrupt because of the IRS than because they need a kidney? Look it up!