RUSH: Kathleen Sebelius, have you heard about this? There’s a little girl in Pennsylvania who is being denied a lung transplant because she’s 10 years old.
I lit a cigar in honor of Sarah Palin right as the program began. Death panels. Just exactly what Sarah Palin said, exactly what we all knew. Obamacare establishes death panels, and right now Sebelius is it. And that’s what Obamacare says. I don’t know how many times it says it in there, but the phrase “as the secretary shall determine,” meaning the secretary of Health and Human Services. Well, Sebelius is determined a 10-year-old doesn’t get the lung. She doesn’t get a lung transplant ’cause she is 10 years old, and you have to be 12 to get a lung transplant under the current regulations.
Her congressman has begged Sebelius to waive the regulation, but she has refused. The congressman’s a Republican. Of course Sebelius would refuse. But I remember how people laughed. I remember how the media said, “Ah, you Republicans, ah, you conservatives, you’re just over the top. There aren’t any death panels. What are you talking about?” Look, I’m not even gonna sit here and say that Sebelius is wrong not to not intervene, but they’re death panels. The government’s making the decision who lives and dies. That’s what Obamacare is. Little think piece, just a little bit. A proposition to the low-information voters. Tell you what we’re gonna do. You have two choices here.
President Obama and 14 people he names to run American health care, or Rush Limbaugh and 14 people he names to run American health care. What do you choose? And we’ll point out now with Obama, he’ll actually choose 14 people, and they will tell you what you can and can’t have and where you can and can’t go and what will and will not be paid for.
I will not set up such a commission. I will tell you your health care business is yours, you work it out with your doctor, you work it out with your insurance company, but I have no control over whether or not your daughter gets a lung transplant and I’m not gonna ever assume that kind of power over you. But Obama and his people happily will, and they happily have. So this a forerunner, it’s just a glaring illustration that there are indeed death panels in Obamacare.
Now, you remember we had a story, oh, a month ago, maybe longer, that the average or lowest cost health insurance annual premium will be $20,000, and I happened to be gearing up for my return to the Golden EIB Microphone starting yesterday, and right there’s a story in the Cybercast News Service: Average Health Care Cost, $20,000.” And there was an accompanying story: “Two-thirds of Americans probably will not have insurance.” They’ll pay the fine. This according to polling data, because this could be too expensive.
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RUSH: We go to Manitowoc, Wisconsin. Greg, I’m glad you waited. It’s great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Thank you, Rush. I just want to say major dittos from the beautiful shores of Lake Michigan.
RUSH: Thank you, sir. Wonderful to have you here.
CALLER: This morning I’m listening to CBS News, and I think I did a double-take when I heard a story about Kathleen Sebelius saying no to that kid, and I thought, holy cow, is that a shot across the bow to the public or what? Then I hear a story about Mrs. Obama heckled at a private fundraiser, and they ran audio of that, and I’m thinking, okay, what’s going on here, you know?
RUSH: Well, as far as Sebelius, the value there is that yes, Virginia, there are death panels, and she’s it.
CALLER: Yep.
RUSH: This is where we’ve been headed. We’ve got a 10-year-old girl that needs a lung transplant, and the government’s involved. The government says, yes, you can. Or, no, you can’t? Does the name Jane Sturm ring a bell with you, Greg?
CALLER: No, not off the top of my head, no.
RUSH: Well, you’ll remember who she is. Her mother, a hundred years old, needed a new pacemaker.
CALLER: Ohhhh, yes.
RUSH: So Obama conducts with ABC News a special on health care live from the White House, and Jane Sturm is in the audience. She stands up and she asks Obama if her mother’s will to live will be factored in the government’s decision to pay for her pacemaker or not. And Obama said (paraphrasing), “No, somebody that old, we can’t factor something as nebulous as will to live. That would be just too complicated and too off the statistical books. What we’ll probably do is just, you know, give ’em a pill and tell ’em to enjoy the rest of their life.” I’m watching and I can’t believe what I’m watching. We have an American citizen asking the president of the United if her mother can get a pacemaker under his new health care bill. Just that alone boggled my mind, an American citizen honestly asking the question.
Folks, I’m gonna tell you. When I grew up, medical procedure, I don’t care what it is, the last place you would go would be the government asking for permission. “Well, Mr. Limbaugh, the problem is the government pays for it now.” That’s exactly right, Mr. New Castrati, and that’s the problem. Here we’ve got a young girl, 10 years old, I know there are federal regulations, there are adults, but it fits the death panel explanation. The death panel is basically gonna be a bunch of people in the regime deciding who gets medical treatments and who doesn’t and why. And it’s gonna boil down to, “Okay, if we’re gonna spend X-amount of money on this medical procedure for this person, how long is that person gonna live? What’s the likelihood our procedure’s gonna have any value?”
In other words, somebody comes in, 75 years old, needs this operation, “Ah, no, it will be better spent if we spend that money on somebody 35.” Hello death panel. And that’s what this 10-year-old girl and the lung transplant is all about. I’m still stunned by that, folks, I’m sorry. I know all the regulations, and I understand it’s not cheap and that individuals would not be able to afford that on their own anyway, but just the idea that — and Kathleen Sebelius said it, “Some people live and some people die.” Now, I would hope that most people say, “Wait a minute, aren’t you people the party of compassion? Aren’t you the people worried about maybe nobody dying, isn’t that what you do? You don’t want anybody to die. You don’t want anybody to get this disease or that disease and if they do you want them to be treated.”
Somebody’s gonna live; somebody’s gonna die. That’s true, by the way. I don’t intellectually disagree with that. But for this regime to say that, after making everybody think that they’re the exact opposite.