RUSH: Labor unions are breaking with President Obama on Obamacare, and I tell you: One of the little pleasures in life, folks, is when liberals realize that their fellow liberals are screwing them, too, in addition to us.
It’s just one of those little pleasures when these little libs — the pajama-clad, kook extremists doing nothing all day but cashing welfare checks and writing comments on all their favorite blogs. When they realize that their fellow libs are targeting them, too, that’s fun to watch. And from TheHill.com: “Labor unions are breaking with President Obama on Obamacare. Months after the presidentÂ’s reelection, a variety of unions are publicly balking at how the [regime] plans to implement the landmark law.
“They warn that unless there are changes, the results could be catastrophic.” These are unions that supported Obama, gave money to Obama, campaigned for Obama, beat up Tea Party people at town hall meetings for Obama. These are people that ran out and tried to intimidate people at town hall meetings or at voting places. “The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) — a 1.3 million-member labor group that twice endorsed Obama for president — is very worried about how the [Obamacare] law will affect its members’ health care plans.”
In a related story (I’ve got it somewhere here in the Stack, and I’ll paraphrase it pending having it right in front of me), there are actually liberal bureaucrats in government in positions of administering the health care law who the reports say are literally shocked that premiums are not going down. They really believed it! So the story says. They really believed that Obamacare was going to expand coverage and make it cheaper, and expand treatment and make it better, and they are literally shocked.
They can’t believe it, so says the story.
Folks, I’m not making this up, and this is not from an isolated kook-ball website. This is either TIME, USA Today, the Washington Post, or New York Times. It’s something that everybody would consider a credible source. It’s mainstream media to the extent that they’re credible, but my point is it’s not some unheard-of website putting this out. The people are shocked. As they’re watching it be implemented, they can’t believe what they’re seeing. They can’t believe it. I know what it is.
They can’t believe that companies are having to go part time and reduce hours to stay in business. That’s what it is. They are shocked to see that! They believe it now, but they are shocked to see what companies are having to do to stay in business. These nameless bureaucrats thought, so says the story, that this was gonna be a shot in the arm for small businesses. Well, it’s what I was talking about in the first hour. Who are these people? These are the groupies, these are the sycophants, these are the acolytes.
They listened to Obama make all these blind, mindless promises, and they believed it! (Obama impression) “Your premium will come down $2500 — and if you like your doctor, you get to keep your doctor! If you like your plan, you get to keep it!” They believed this stuff. They believed Obama was gonna make the sea levels go down. The believed Obama was gonna end global warming. They believed all this stuff! These are just full-fledged, mindless twerp, groupies.
These are the people that Obama puts in office or puts in these positions to execute his agenda, blindly following it no matter where it goes. But then when they see that what their Dear Leader told them isn’t true, they’re literally confounded. That’s why I’ve always said, there’s a bunch of different strata of liberals. It’s like any other group. You’ve got the leaders, the strategerists, the organizers — and then you’ve got the dupes and the true believers and the useful idiots, rank ametuers, who believe all this crap — and they’re shocked.
That’s why I say: It’s a fun thing to witness when liberals realize that they’re getting screwed by their buddies.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, here’s that story I’ve done been looking for. Veronique de Rugy — and I have no idea if I’m pronouncing her name right. I’m pretty sure I’m right on Veronique, but then it’s little d-e, space, capital R-u-g-y. Could be De Rugy, could be De Rugy, could be De Rugy, De Rugy, De Rugy. I’m pronouncing it Veronique De Rugy. She posted a little bit at National Review Online in The Corner about a Wall Street Journal article that talks about the Law of Unintended Consequences.
“The short version is employers are flocking to lower-cost, bare-bones medical plans to avoid the increased costs and mandates of Obamacare.” The point of the Wall Street Journal story is they’ve gone out and they’ve found all of these bureaucrats that helped to write the law who can’t believe this is happening. They can’t believe that these businesses are laying people off and converting people from full time to part time — and furthermore, are buying “bare-bones medical plans.”
Benefits advisers, insurance brokers, these bureaucrats, thought that Obamacare would broadly enrich benefits, that Obamacare would expand coverage, expand treatment options. They just can’t believe that this is happening. That’s the point of the Wall Street Journal story. I knew I had it in the Stack here somewhere. “[T]he Wall Street Journal asked some of the key planners of Obamacare, they seemed mystified that this might happen.
“‘”We wouldn’t have anticipated that thereÂ’d be demand for these types of band-aid plans in 2014,” said Robert Kocher, a former White House health adviser who helped shepherd the law. “Our expectation was that employers would offer high quality insurance.”‘” So once again (and there’s a bunch of ’em quoted), here’s Robert Kocher, “a former White House health adviser who helped shepherd the law through Congress,” and is literally stunned that businesses are laying people off, converting full to part-time, and buying the cheapest medical plans they can.
They thought the opposite would happen, and they’re literally, genuinely surprised.
Now, that’s something I take schadenfreude in, folks.
Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee. That, yes siree, bob.
Andy in Asheville, North Carolina, wonderful to have you on the program. Hello, sir. I’ve been there.
CALLER: It’s a wonderful place.
RUSH: I’ve been there. I toured the Vanderbilt mansion there.
CALLER: Yes. Wonderful place. I was actually calling because I find it amazing that it’s not —
RUSH: Well, it’s a little small, but I still wanted to see it. I’m sorry, what were you saying?
CALLER: I’m calling because I find it amazing that it’s not more in the news. Let me say that I’m 33 years old, my first kid is a month old right now, and I work at two national restaurants, and it’s actually policy in both of them right now to keep us below full time so that they don’t have to provide the health care and everything. And, you know, I’ll admit I spent my twenties partying and I’ll be the first to say I don’t deserve a handout. I don’t want a handout, but now I’m trying to get my life in order, trying to get full-time jobs and everything and they just aren’t out there and I find it amazing that it’s not getting more coverage. My wife’s mom is a liberal to the death, and still thinks that Obamacare is so great for everyone and there are no ill effects, and it’s like I can’t find full-time work right now because of the companies being afraid that they’re gonna have to pay out the medical benefits to everyone.
RUSH: That’s exactly what this Wall Street Journal story I just referenced is about. Your call could not be more timely.
CALLER: Yeah, I was listening to you while I was at one of my jobs that I drive around, and I heard that, and I was like, “That’s me to a T.” I don’t understand why it’s not getting more coverage. There are negative effects already happening from the Obamacare thing that no one is talking about.
RUSH: Well, let me tell you, it is starting to get more coverage. I mean, having this show up in the Wall Street Journal is not insignificant. And the story that I read earlier about the unions upset with Obama, that’s in TheHill.com, which is widely read in Washington. I think the problems with Obamacare are obvious to everybody. And, Andy?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: I hate to tell you this. I mean, I really do. Part-time is gonna be the new normal, because of Obamacare. And you, by the accident of when you were born, are running head first right into it.
CALLER: Yeah, it’s just amazing that — I mean, and then, you know, it’s hard with a one month-year-old child to try to balance two jobs, get the scheduling between the two jobs worked out so I can almost pull off a full-time work week.
RUSH: Now, you said that you work at two national restaurant chains?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: So you’ve got two jobs and they’ve both been converted to part-time?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: And if you add the work together you’ve essentially got one full-time job?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: But you don’t have full-time benefits because —
CALLER: Yeah. No benefits at all.
RUSH: None at all. None at all. Because you’ve been downsized to part-time. Like how many hours a week at each place do you have?
CALLER: The one will not let you work more than 28, and the other one is 30, and they will cut you in the middle of a shift if you get to that number of hours there.
RUSH: I know. I know. They just send you home if you get close to the limit. So is it safe to say you’re working a 55 to 58-hour week?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: Two jobs.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: And your wife just had a baby, so at age 33, I heard you say you spent your twenties partying, I’m assuming what you mean is that you’ve now, because of the birth of your child, you’ve gotten more serious.
CALLER: Yes, absolutely. And then I turn around to look, you know, to try get full-time work and everything like that, now it’s time, and it’s just not possible. Everywhere I go is like, “The best we can offer you is 20 hours a week.”
RUSH: Andy, there’s nothing I can specifically do, but I can tell you something. Over the 25 years I’ve been doing this program, there have been ups and downs in the US economy over that period. At one particular time it was an economic downturn that had as its primary feature white-collar people being laid off, and the media, by the way, back then, led by USA Today, incidentally, was ecstatic that it was finally management being laid off instead of the blue-collar workers so that management could find out what it’s like. And so what happened was a lot of these people were in their forties and fifties and they’re being laid off not from jobs, but from careers, and they weren’t gonna be able to go out at their age and replace what they had lost because people younger than they are are willing to work for much less.
I did a consecutive three-day show on what these people were gonna do, and they called here and they said, “You know what? I’m gonna do what I’ve always wanted to do, finally. I’ve had to work because I’ve got life responsibilities, family responsibilities, and I’ve always had a hobby that I liked to do that I wish somebody would pay me for.” So out of necessity for the first time in their lives, many of them found out what they really loved and wanted to do and tried to make a business out of it. And some of them, we kept in touch with them, and some of them succeeded, and they said they’d never been happier.
Now, that is still possible for people. What I want to tell you is, even now in this era of Obamacare, it’s tougher than it’s been for a lot of people, and there’s nothing you can do about it, just happened to be when you were born, it’s the reality you face, but there are still ways that you can overcome it. And you have to realize, Andy, that most of the limitations that you think you face are actually limitations you’re putting on yourself and you may not know it.
CALLER: Absolutely.
RUSH: For example, are you willing to move?
CALLER: Oh, yeah.
RUSH: Okay. Well, that’s a big hurdle. Do you know, is there something you really would love to do? Is there a career, job, whatever, activity you just love doing and you’d like to get paid for it?
CALLER: I’m already doing that. I mean, I love cooking, and that’s what I do, that’s my passion.
RUSH: All right. Well, I’m gonna tell you, the opportunity. The opportunity is still there because a lot of people are tuning out and getting depressed and deciding to go ahead and take the welfare check. There is still a chance. You can still overcome this. I’ve gotta run ’cause I’m way long on time, but you can overcome this, because this is still America, and people like you overcoming it are gonna help save this country. You can beat this, but it isn’t gonna be easy. I wish you the best in it. Think positive.