RUSH: Time to get into the political nature of things here.  We start with, as I mentioned at the top of the program, Kamala Harris.  Everybody is focusing on Kamala Harris because she is the first Democrat to announce with great fanfare. CNN helped Kamala Harris with a town hall in Iowa last night.  They televised the town hall, and in the midst of this town hall — during it — Kamala Harris promised to get rid of private insurance. Just wipe it all out.  There won’t be any health insurance.  You’ll just go to the doctor, you’ll just go to the emergency room, and you’ll be treated with whatever you need.

There will be no forms to sign, no forms to fill out, no insurance to cover any portion of it, because there isn’t gonna be private insurance.  She promised to eliminate all private health care insurance if she’s elected.  She said to Jake Tapper, “The idea is that everybody gets access to medical care and you don’t have to go through the process of going through an insurance company, having them give you approval, going through the paperwork and all the delay that that might require.”  Now, if a Republican had made this proposal, CNN would have been all over them with the impracticality of it, the impossibility of it.

“What are you gonna do about insurance companies that you’re putting out of business? What about people that work in that industry? What about all the ancillary effects of this?”  But, no. They sit here and they fawn and they applaud (clapping) and they think it’s really advanced so forth — and it’s Obama on steroids.  What it shows is how little Kamala Harris knows about either private insurance or Medicare.  Jake Tapper asked her if people who like their current health care insurance could keep it.  Now, why would he ask her that?  Well, because Obama lied about it.

And so rather than say, “Now, Ms. Harris, Barack Obama promised everybody that their health insurance premiums would go down and if they like their doctor, they can keep their doctor.” Of course, that turned out not to be true. He didn’t preface his question with the fact that Obama totally lied to the American people. He just said, “Well, what about people who like their plans and their insurance companies, can they keep them?”

And Kamala Harris said (paraphrasing), “No, people will not be allowed to keep their plans because there won’t be any insurance.” She said, “Listen, the idea is that everybody gets access to medical care, and you don’t have to go through the process of going through an insurance company or have them give you approval. No paperwork. All of those delays are gone. Who among us has not had that situation,” she said. “Where you gotta wait for approval and the doctor says, ‘Well, I don’t know if your insurance company is gonna cover this.” Let’s just eliminate all that. Let’s just move on and cover everybody for whatever they need whenever they need it, which shows how little she knows about either private insurance or Medicare.

Not all private insurance requires preapprovals. Only the HMOs do. But we’re back to the argument that we were discussing yesterday, “How do you pay for this?” And to most people that no longer is a question that causes them any trouble. “What do you mean, how you gonna pay for it? How we paying for anything? We pay for everything else; why not this?” Most people don’t see people going without. Most people don’t see government going without. Most people, “What do you mean, what we gonna pay, how we gonna pay? How are we paying for anything?”

It used to be that you could cause liberals trouble by asking them, “How you gonna pay for it?” But it doesn’t cause any trouble today. Not nearly as much because way too many Americans are not concerned with the citizenship aspect of government paying for everything. They’re not concerned with we have or have not the money. So we’re gonna have to come up with different ways of approaching this, which I have some ideas that I’ll share with you as the program unfolds.

Let me take a break. We’ll go to some of the audio sound bites from this town hall from last night. You can hear for yourself some of this lunacy that was presented as artful and reasonable and compassionate and all of that other gunk.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: You know, folks, there’s some fascinating things happening already on the Democrat side in response to Kamala Harris basically saying, “When it comes to health care, go wherever you want and get whatever you need, no paperwork, no insurance, no forms, don’t worry about paying for it, just show up.”

So far, two Democrats have come out and said this is insane, it is impossible, it cannot be done. One of them is Howard Schultz, who seeks the Democrat — well, no, he’s gonna seek the presidency as an independent, which has the Democrats fit to be tied because they think he’s gonna take votes away from the Democrat nominee, not Trump.

But now Howard Schultz, the Starbucks guy, has been joined by Doomberg, the former mayor of New York. He’s in Nashua, New Hampshire, today and a reporter said, “Kamala Harris said last night that she’d be in favor -” and this administration’s running on the Democrat side if he runs or maybe an independent, but he’s not a Republican. In name only when he wanted to be elected in New York. So the reporter says, “Kamala Harris said that she would be in favor of eliminating private insurance and replacing it with Medicare for everybody. What is your position on that?”

BLOOMBERG: I think you could never afford that. You’re talking about trillions of dollars. I think you can have Medicare for all for people that are uncovered, ’cause that’s a smaller group, and a lot of them are taken care of, Medicaid already, Medicare. But to replace the entire private system where companies provide health care for their employees would bankrupt us for a very long time.

RUSH: The guy’s gonna get heckled. Just like Howard Schultz got heckled because this is what the Democrats want. They think they deserve this. They think they’re owed this. And here this guy, you replace the entire private system where companies provide health care for their employees, it would bankrupt us? Democrats worried about bankruptcy? This doesn’t happen. Democrats responding to another Democrat saying, “We don’t have the money for your spending”?

That never happened to Obama. There’s nothing new about Kamala Harris, folks. She is Barack Obama, different gender, but that’s about the only difference. It’s about the only difference. Well, Obama didn’t have that much in common with Stormy Daniels, and she does. But aside from that, it’s about the only difference. In terms of what she’s saying, what her agenda is.

So already two prominent leftists are suggesting that we can’t start spending money like this. We don’t have any. We’re bankrupt. Grab sound bite 8. Here is what she actually said about this from the question that I mentioned earlier from Jake Tapper. This is from an audience member. “What’s your solution to ensure that people have access to quality health care at an affordable price and does that solution involve cutting insurance companies as we know them out of the equation?”

HARRIS: We need to have Medicare for all. That’s just the bottom line. (applause) Access to health care should not be thought of as a privilege. It should be understood to be a right. It should be understood to be something that all people should be entitled to so that they can live a productive life, so that they can have dignity. And having a system that makes a difference in terms of who receives what based on your income is unconscionable, it is cruel, and in many situations that I have witnessed, inhumane.

Kamala Harris supports a complete government takeover of healthcare, says regarding the free market: “Let’s eliminate all that. Let’s move on.” pic.twitter.com/0HmW2Pnn6d

— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) January 29, 2019

RUSH: Yeah, see, there is nothing new in this. It is recycled left-wing claptrap, and it’s exactly what Obama said. But saying that is not going to dissuade people who want this to be true. We’re dealing with a new breed of leftist. We’re dealing with more uneducated, ill-educated, angry, fit to be tied people who are standing ovation reacting to that kind of thing. “Well, it’s just not fair. It’s a right and doesn’t matter how much you have; you should get the best and as much as anybody else.” Just right up their alley. But what’s different is these two Democrats, Schultz and Doomberg coming out and pooh-poohing the whole thing. That is new.

Here is a montage. We’re back to sound bite 7. This is a montage of her platitudes and her agenda. And you tell me here what’s different from that which we got from Obama.

HARRIS: You know, we have to speak truths. So much more in common than what separates us. Make sure that the most vulnerable and voiceless among us are protected. Healthcare should not be thought of as a privilege. It should be a right. Contrary to the values we hold as Americans. Climate change is an existential threat to us. Listen, all children need to be able to breathe clean air and drink clean water. No reason why we cannot have reasonable gun safety laws. Do it in a way that is smart and strategic. We have babies that are on the verge of starving. Families that cannot pay their bills. Within our diversity, we also have so much commonality. I will say to you that I stand with you.

RUSH: So they sell her as something new and fresh and different, but it isn’t new, fresh, or different. It’s just the same. It’s already tried, it’s already worn out, it’s already proven to not work. It’s the same stuff Obama said, same stuff Hillary said, the same stuff repackaged in a different looking human being. And that’s the end of the difference.

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RUSH: On the subject of how do we deal with all of these Democrats promising to be Santa Claus on steroids, for example, Kamala Harris. Get rid of private insurance, there is no health insurance at work anymore. No longer gonna be a benefit because there isn’t gonna be any insurance. There’s just gonna be free Medicare for everybody. Get sick, go wherever you want, it’ll be paid for. No forms to fill out.

Now, it used to be in reacting to this you would tell the American people, “Folks, it sounds good. We can’t afford this. We as a country, our citizens, our taxpayers, we cannot afford this. Where are we gonna get the money? We’re gonna have to raise taxes so much to pay for this that it’s gonna end all discretionary income.” That used to work. It used to work. It used to work on a majority of Americans, that we don’t have the money for this, the where are we gonna get the money for this, that we’re gonna have to raise taxes for this.

But I don’t think it works anymore. We already have an annual budget deficit of $800 billion, a national debt of $20 to 21 trillion. It doesn’t take the American people long to figure out we don’t have money for anything, and yet we’re continuing to spend it, and the sky isn’t falling. So why can’t I finally have free health care? Why do I have to go to all this paperwork and other stuff? Why can’t I have access, it’s a right like the Democrats say, it’s not a privilege. I should be able to get it. And who’s gonna pay for it is not a matter of concern anymore because the American people don’t really see anything being paid for.

And as all of these government giveaways have grown and as more and more people are getting some kind of federal assistance, people haven’t seen their tax rates skyrocket to pay for it. The middle class barely pays three percent of all income tax revenues. They’re being soaked and taxed in other ways, but they don’t see it because the money is taxed before they get it. It’s deducted, but still, they don’t see the train wreck that we assured them would happen.

They don’t see their taxes reaching 70 or 80%. They don’t see themselves without any disposable income. They don’t see any of the things we’ve been warning about for 20 years. We can’t afford this, free this, free that, we can’t afford it. They see the financial crisis come along, the banks got bailed out, everything appears to be fine, and now we’ve even got new legislation making sure we’re really cracking down on those bank guys, they’re not getting away, except they’re richer than they ever were. There doesn’t seem to be any pain associated with all of this spending. Not like people have been told and warned there would be.

So my point is that the way to react to Kamala Harris is not the way we’ve been doing it for 30 or 50 years, to ask potential Kamala Harris voters to stop and think, “Where are we gonna get the money for this?” That’s not the way to go about it, ’cause it doesn’t work. I’ve lived these last 30 to 50 years, and I can tell you that asking voters to really stop and think how we gonna pay for this, they’re not gonna stop and think about it. They don’t think anything’s being paid for.

It’s just there’s so much money floating around government, can’t keep track of the numbers. What is four trillion annual budget? What’s the national deficit, what is that? Can’t visualize it, $21 trillion dollar national debt, all these horrible things, and yet the sun comes up every day. People that want a job have one to go to, they get paid, able to buy their SUVs, do whatever, some people more than others, but certainly there hasn’t been any disastrous result to all this spending that anybody can see.

So we would be reduced to say, “You wait, 10 years, 15, I mean, the bill’s gonna come due and isn’t gonna be pretty.” Except people say, “I’ve been told the bill’s gonna come due for the last 30 years, and I still haven’t had to pay it.” So how do you reach people? Because you can’t do this. The bottom line, nothing’s changed. You can’t give away health care to everybody, and for very real reasons. You cannot eliminate the concept of supply and demand. You cannot make things free! You just can’t, because they aren’t.

So how do you tell people you can’t do that now if telling them we can’t afford it, it’s gonna break our bank, your taxes are gonna skyrocket, if that doesn’t work, then how do we persuade them that it’s very bad policy and will not work? Well, in health care, the first thing you tell ’em is the reality of the situation. That despite these promises, despite all of this wondrous utopia where everybody that gets sick goes to whatever doctor they want and gets the best treatment and nobody ever sends ’em a bill, who is going to pay the doctor? Because if the doctor isn’t there to treat you, what are you gonna do?

So who is gonna pay the doctor?

“Government will!”

Oh, okay. Government’s gonna pay the doctor. With what?

“Well, whatever the doctor charges.” No, because doctors are being paid less and less and less by Medicare and Medicaid as time goes on. And Kamala Harris is gonna wipe out private arrangements. You’re not gonna be able to go see the doctor on your own. You’re gonna have to show up, the government’s gonna be paying everybody. The way the fact that there isn’t money to pay for it will manifest itself is in lines, long lines. There will be rationing. I don’t care what anybody says, nobody is gonna get cadillac treatment every time they get a hangnail, wherever they go. It can’t happen. There is no utopia, and nothing is free.

And anybody who has anything to do with manufacturing, inventing, or creating anything to do with the treatment, from a Band-Aid to a stethoscope to a syringe somebody’s gonna have to get paid for making all that stuff, and somebody’s gonna have to get paid for all the machines that do all the testing and somebody’s gonna have to get paid for doing all the treatments. Where is that money gonna come from? There’s not an endless supply. We already don’t have enough.

There’s gonna be rationing. Just like there was with Obamacare, when people thought that was fair. There’s gonna be rationing. There are gonna be long lines. There’s gonna be so many vast differences in the quality of treatment. Just need to ask people, if this can be done, if free health care is just a matter of doing it, then why hadn’t anybody done it successfully yet?

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let’s talk about drugs. Drug supply. You think drugs are just gonna be available in an endless supply when everything’s free? How long do you think the lines are gonna be outside drugstores? How long are the lines gonna be outside the ER? How long are the lines gonna be outside any GP or doctor’s office? If you want to get a heads-up on what Kamala Harris’s get rid of insurance, we’re gonna take everybody ’cause it’s a right looks like, go to the VA and then imagine that on steroids.

There’s all kinds of real-world examples to demonstrate to people that what she and all the other Democrats except for Doomburg and Howard Schultz — this is something new — two Democrats coming out and blowing up Santa Claus. When Santa Claus makes a promise for free health care for everybody, two Democrats, Doomberg and Schultz come out and say it’s not possible, this is new. But there are real world examples to demonstrate to people that don’t know that this kind of thing just can’t happen.

There are people who think all of this free stuff, just get the right person in the White House it could be made to happen. But Republicans don’t like healthy people. They don’t like clean water or clean air. Republicans don’t want anybody to have anything. There are people that think this. So showing them the truth of what they want, which is not that difficult to do, is probably the best way to approach this ’cause we’re gonna have to find a way.

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RUSH: So I checked the email during the break, and a lot of people said, “Rush, it isn’t that complicated. Just tell people to look at Venezuela.” Folks, that is not gonna work! I wish it did. But most of the people we’re talking about don’t know where Venezuela is and they don’t know what’s happened in Venezuela, and if we’re the ones to tell ’em, they’re not gonna believe it anyway.

There’s something else. Among those who are aware, among those on the left who are aware that Venezuela is not helpful when trying to sell socialism, you know what they are telling other leftists and Millennials? Venezuela was fine. The CIA undermined Venezuela just like the CIA has undermined every other Central American country, and that’s why all those people have to come here. The CIA undermined Cuba. The CIA undermined Nicaragua. The CIA undermined Argentina. This is their answer to everything.

The people that don’t know are never gonna be persuaded that socialism is what killed Venezuela. It’s too esoteric because to them socialism is utopia. It’s never been properly tried anywhere, and the CIA undermined it, precisely because the Republican Party doesn’t want people to see how wonderful socialism is. This is what we’re dealing with. This is the kind of ignorance, the ignorance among people who do vote.

Let me give you an analogy of what we’re up against here. The Super Bowl is coming up this weekend, the Rams and the New England Patriots. Wade Phillips, the defense coordinator for the Rams had it right. He said (paraphrasing), “Tom Brady has seen everything. There’s no way that I can come up with a defense that’s gonna fool Tom Brady. At this level, there isn’t any trick. The only way we’re gonna beat the New England Patriots is to outplay them. We’re gonna have to outexecute them. Whatever scheme we come up with on defense, we’re gonna have to play better than New England plays on offense. And that’s it. We can’t trick anybody.”

Now, I’m not saying that your average left wing voter is Tom Brady, but the point that Wade Phillips is saying is it comes down to execution. It’s not trickery. We’re dealing with people who are what they are. They do not want to believe socialism sucks. They think it’s utopia. And there’s nothing we can say to them that’s gonna make them believe that. They’ve got a readymade excuse for why Venezuela tanked or why any other socialist or communist nation tanked and it’s generally because the CIA, meaning the United States, sabotaged or undermined.

So overcoming that is gonna require just flat-out better execution. Meaning, we’re gonna need more voters on our side, rather than trying to persuade those people who are intractable because they’re too ignorant, they don’t know enough. We’re gonna have to find voters who do know enough, who are persuadable, who can be made to understand and target them. There are plenty of ’em. Millennials are not running this country. The uneducated dolts are not yet in charge. They’re close on the Democrat side.

Way too many people are obsessed with converting nonbelievers to believers. I long ago, “That’s not the game. The game is to just kick their ass. The game is to beat them.” It’s a waste of time. Justice Scalia once told me — I had occasion to have a chat with him about what happens in the Supreme Court, you know, cases are being debated by the justices. I said, “Do you ever change their mind?”

“Change their mind? I don’t even try. No. They’re not gonna change their mind.” He didn’t mention any names, but the people there were Breyer and John Paul Stevens was still there at the time. He’s not gonna change their mind. They think they know everything. “I write what I believe, I have my position on each case, that’s what it is, and, yeah, we go in there and we -” He said there’s not a whole lot of debate on these things. But the idea he wasn’t gonna change their mind ’cause they already know what’s right in their mind.

So in that sense, not that we are the Supreme Court ’cause there are only nine of ’em. But we have to beat them. We have to execute better than they do, not trick them, not try to persuade those that are lost causes. And I think way too many of our efforts have been focused on just that: conversion. It happens. I mean, it’s not uncommon for a former leftist to call here and claim this program converted them. But one at a time. It doesn’t happen en masse. They have to be beat, not converted.

And conversion is not a bad thing to try, but not as your primary strategy. It’s icing on the cake, if it works.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  So let me see if I got this right.  The CIA can undermine Venezuela. The CIA can undermine an entire nation and sabotage socialism.  The CIA could undermine (JFK impression) “Cuber.”  The CIA could undermine Nicaragua.  But for some reason, the CIA can’t stop the Russians from meddling in our elections.  This is the kind of inanity and stupidity that liberals believe!  “Oh, yeah.  The Russians can impact our elections. There’s nothing we can do to stop it.  Not a thing we can do.  They just do it!”  But, man, the CIA can overthrow entire countries like Venezuela to make socialism look like a failure.  Our problem is we think these people are way smarter than they are, and we approach ’em that way, and we’re wasting our time half the time.