RUSH: Here’s Lloyd, Michigan, on the way to Minnesota. He’s en route. Great to have you on the program, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Thank you. I drive for a small trucking company, about 125 people employed all told, and one of my friends called me this morning and says in the driver’s room last night, laying on the table, was a brochure that said as the 1st of August, they’re dropping all of our health care and we’ll have to go somewheres else to find it. So I just thought, “Well, now, that’s interesting. Thank you, Mr. Obama.” I suppose that’s happening around the nation, but I just thought I’d let you know that.
RUSH: Do you know the reasons that they’re doing this yet? Have you seen any of these brochures or this paperwork that explains or have you just had it explained or told to you?
CALLER: No. He just told me that. I haven’t seen it myself, and he just told me.
RUSH: Okay, but by August 1st, no health care provided for anybody at this trucking company?
CALLER: That’s right.
RUSH: No matter how many hours you work?
CALLER: No. Doesn’t matter. Stops.
RUSH: All right. They’re off-loading you. So by law, if your company doesn’t provide you insurance, guess what you have to do?
CALLER: Right, and like myself —
RUSH: You either get… You have two options. You actually have three options. You pay a fine and don’t get any, or you go buy your own and try to find a group you can join (chuckling) wherever you live, or you find your state Obamacare exchange and you go buy your policy there.
CALLER: Now, I’m drawing Social Security and I’m on Medicare or Medicaid, whatever it is, so I don’t know. Does that affect people like myself?
RUSH: Yes. The law says you have to have it.
CALLER: Even though I have Medicare?
RUSH: Yep.
CALLER: Really?
RUSH: I’m pretty sure. I don’t think that there are any excuses for not having a health insurance policy or paying a fine if you don’t, and I don’t think Medicare qualifies.
CALLER: Huh. You know my wife turns 65 in September, so I haven’t any other insurance other than that, other than AFLAC a little bit. But I was gonna get her this Plan B — and myself, I never did take it so they always want $10 a month more for a fine, you know, ’cause I didn’t take it right off the bat.
RUSH: Well, here’s the way to look at this. If your company is dropping your health insurance, why is that a big deal? ‘Cause they’re dropping your health insurance, obviously, so you don’t have any health care. Do you look at Medicare as your safeguard? I mean, if you had health care with your company why did you do that since you had Medicare?
CALLER: See, I never did take it. I never did. This was like 176 bucks for a week for my wife and I, so we just never took it.
RUSH: Oh, so you weren’t on the company health care policy?
CALLER: I never was.
RUSH: Oh. All right, well, then does Medicare cover what you and your wife need?
CALLER: I never used it.
RUSH: Well, you’re gonna have to now. If you are on Medicare, then I stand corrected, I think. Hell, who knows? But if you’re on Medicare, you won’t need to buy insurance but you’re gonna have to prove that you’re on it.
CALLER: Right, yes.
RUSH: Are you a Teamster? Are you member of the Teamsters union?
CALLER: No. No. No. Unh-uh. No. He’s independent company, so no union.
RUSH: Well, you can try getting by with your Medicare. See, I’m among the legions that, when it comes to Medicare, I’ve never used it. So I’m not certain how much Medicare qualifies you in the eyes of the law as having a policy. If you qualify for Medicare, then you might already be covered. You might not have to buy any insurance.
CALLER: I’m gonna have to check into that to make sure, but, you know, people are gonna have to start paying some kind of a claim.
RUSH: We think here… We think, but I can never be sure, so don’t quote me as gospel. We think here that Medicare/Medicaid count as being covered under Obamacare. But they’re running it, and just depends on what you’re told when you happen to use it. You gotta prove you’re under Medicare, though. So apparently it’s what you’ve been using if you haven’t been on your company’s policy. So your fellow employees at the trucking firm, if they don’t qualify for Medicare, are gonna have to go out — by law — and be insured somehow, somewhere, or pay a fine.
That’s what the 16,000 additional IRS agents are for, is to track down people that are not paying their insurance and assess and collect fines.
It’ll be done on your tax return. It’ll come out of your refund or it’ll be an additional assessment when you file. Now, will Obama escape blame for this? When this stuff hits, will Obama escape blame for this along the lines of the Limbaugh Theorem? We’ll find out. I mean, 2014 is the magic year. You know, you give it a year from now. Give it until summer next year when all this stuff kicks in. His name’s on it. Obamacare. He’s the one who’s told everybody their costs are going down. So you would expect in a sane world that, yeah, this will attach to him. You would expect that.
The low-information people don’t know their refunds will go down.
The low-information don’t know jack.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: All right, here’s what we think we know. Section 5000(a)(f) of the Internal Revenue Code — and that’s where you have to go to find out a Medicare provision for Obamacare — section 5000 of the Internal Revenue Code says minimum essential coverage — health care — can consist of either, A, government sponsored coverage, such as the Medicare or Medicaid, or, B, an eligible employer sponsored plan. Well, this guy’s losing that, so if he’s got Medicare or Medicaid, he’s covered. However — and there’s always a kicker — Medicare, don’t forget, has been cut to the bone by Obamacare in order to so-called make it fit in under this trillion-dollar magic number cost. Remember the $500 billion Medicare cuts.
Well, what that means in practical application is that Medicare coverage is being cut to the bone, and you cannot, starting in October, you can’t buy Medicare Advantage ’cause it’s been cut. I think the Medicare Advantage cuts commence in October, for those of you who even know what it is, Medicare Advantage. It’ll no longer be allowed. Now, to make you feel even better, Medicare doesn’t have any money. You’ve heard that we have a $16 trillion national debt approaching $17 trillion. Well, part of that is that Medicare’s unfunded liability, meaning the amount of money pledged to qualified recipients now stands at $43 trillion. That’s about three times the size of today’s economy.
A Wall Street Journal article points this out today, a story by John Goodman and Laurence Kotlikoff: “Medicare by the Scary Numbers.” So Obama cut Medicare by $700 billion and then tried to double recount it elsewhere. But remember Romney talking about it all during the campaign, trying to get the low-information voter, “Look, Obama has cut Medicare $500, 700 billion,” whatever it was. Well, the bottom line is that Medicare’s unfunded liability, meaning what is currently pledged to the American people when they hit the age of eligibility for it is $43 trillion. And we don’t have it. The national debt is approaching $17 trillion, the unfunded Medicare liability.
Social Security is in a similar boat. That’s why there’s been all the talk about the need for entitlement reform, which the regime is saying (raspberry) to. Wall Street Journal, not my number, their story. Forty-three trillion unfunded. So the bottom line, get ready for that to be pulled out from under you at any time, and then force you over to some exchange. Anything can happen. That’s why I don’t want to sit here and tell you for sure when you call here, “I’m losing my health coverage at my trucking company in August, what’s gonna happen to me?”
Who the hell knows. And if you don’t have the money to buy it yourself, I guarantee you, you are a prisoner. You’re gonna be depending on things that you have no control over and hoping and praying. And you might be inclined to tell anybody that you’re dealing with that, yeah, you voted for Obama, yeah, you’re gonna vote for Democrats. Might help you out. You never know. The whole thing’s unsustainable. And, remember, Obamacare was supposed to get rid of all this, eliminate all these costs, eliminate all these expenses. It’s depressing.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: So you think the low-information voters are gonna love Obamacare because they’re gonna see Eva Longoria promoting it or their favorite NFL player promoting it? Let me just point something out to you. If your average Obama voter walking into McDonald’s in Port St. Lucie discovers they’re outta Chicken McNuggets and calls 911, what do you think is going to happen when that person wants to go to the doctor and somebody tells them “no”? The Democrat Party doesn’t like to tell anybody “no.” And do you know how many people are gonna be told “no” under Obamacare? If you think they go nuts when they’re outta Chicken McNuggets, wait’ll they need a chopadictomy or whatever. All hell is gonna break loose.