Obamacare Could’ve Killed Koch

Tom in Danbury, Connecticut, you’re next on the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Good afternoon, Rush. What a privilege. Longtime listener back to Mapplethorpe debacle.

RUSH: Thank you.

CALLER: I have raised four Rush Babies who are now four Rush adults.

RUSH: Well, thank you very much. That’s great to hear.

CALLER: Talking about the cost of health care and we get fed this information about the constant rising costs, well, why? One of the big reasons is because of the cost of Medicare and the cost of Medicaid. Anybody who has a relative, a mother or somebody on Medicare will see that typically they only pay one-third of normal customary charges. Well, who’s going to pay the balance? The insurance companies have to make a profit from somewhere, and so because of government’s involvement in health care already, that’s one of the reasons that health care costs so much. What do they want to do? They want more government involvement. It’s insanity, isn’t it, Rush?

RUSH: It is. It’s the subprime mortgage crisis coming to health care. Same arguments; same failures predictable shortly down the road.

Robert in Stuart, Florida. You’re next. Great to have you, sir, on the EIB Network.

CALLER: Rush, a little CBI lingo. Anyone who signs on for this in my opinion — I’m an 88-year-old veteran, hundred percent totally permanently disabled — kiss of death. History remembers the Bataan death march. If you couldn’t make it, you were cut. When your name becomes a symbol and next to it it’s red, you are not producing. You’re taking too much medicine, it costs too much and so forth, you’re going to go. The government controls those who can be born, who choose to be born, and now they’re getting in the business of choosing who may live. Not right, Rush. We’re a better country than that. You can’t put the mothers and fathers and older people on the block and say, ‘Why don’t you think they should be terminated? They’re not paying in anything, they’re taking Social Security.’ You’re a number, Rush.

RUSH: That’s what’s going to happen.

CALLER: Exactly.

RUSH: In fact, let me give you a good illustration of this. Ed Koch. You said you’re 88 out there, Robert. Ed Koch is 84. Let’s say Obamacare is the law of the land. Ed Koch needed bypass surgery, quadruple bypass surgery on June 19th. He had a heart valve replacement and successful quadruple bypass surgery on June 19th. He’s been in the hospital since then. He’s 84. Under Obamacare — take Ed Koch out of it, because Ed Koch, former mayor, he’d get covered, government official, apparatchik, commissar — but your average 84-year-old who needs a heart valve and a quadruple bypass, I guarantee you is not going to get it. The government will say there’s no point in making this investment in you. You’re already past the life expectancy. And guess what? Koch had to have gallbladder surgery today after having the heart valve and the quadruple bypass on June the 19th. He’s been in the hospital since then.

Now, I’m not trying to be ghoulish. I’m trying to be rational and illustrate a point. If Ed Koch were your average 84-year-old American would he get any of that treatment? By design he would not because he’s too old. He’s not worth the investment to keep alive because we gotta cut health care costs and so forth. We gotta use less health care. It’s in the bill. Ed Koch had the ability with his current plan to have this work done. He will lose his current plan — well, Koch may not be the best example because he’s a former mayor, he’s a Democrat government guy and I’m sure would be taken care of as one of the apparatchiks, which reminds me of this story. Henry Allingham, he went to war as a teenager and he helped keep flimsy aircraft flying. He survived his wounds and came home from World War I to live to 113 years of age. He died Saturday.

You know what he attributed his longevity to? Cigarettes, whiskey, and wild, wild women, 113. ‘Jokes aside, he was a modest man, he served as Britain’s conscience –‘ it said here, ‘– reminding young people time and time again about the true cost of war. ‘I want everyone to know they died for us.” These old guys will be looked upon with disfavor by the Obama health care plan. They represent some of the greatest sources of collected wisdom to impart to other people simply because of the experiences that they’ve had. You asked yourself a question about Ed Koch, 88-year-old Robert here from Stuart, Florida, if he needs major surgery like this, Obama plan, he doesn’t get it, and he can’t go pay for it privately. He can’t have private health insurance. If he can’t afford the procedure on his own — and then he’s gotta find a doctor who’s willing to work outside the government plan, and there’s going to be intimidation on that. This is just a dreadful, horrible thing that they have on the drawing board.