RUSH: We got a call from Iraq, and I want to grab that call. This is Don. Where are you in Iraq, if you can say, Don?
CALLER: I am at Camp Delta in Iraq, which is near Al Kut, Rush.
RUSH: Well, great to have you here.
CALLER: Mega dittos from here.
RUSH: Thank you much.
CALLER: I have a question about the health care bill, sir. I hope you can hear me okay. I’m calling over the Internet actually, too.
RUSH: I actually hear you better than most telephone calls.
CALLER: Excellent. The question is: How have we gotten to the point where we are now in the health care debate? We went from wanting to insure people that had no insurance. Now, I realize we provide most Americans with health care, but we went from providing people who didn’t have health insurance to this gargantuan bill and we’re still leaving out 12-1/2 million people without insurance. I don’t understand how we went from trying to get everybody on insurance to this gargantuan monstrosity of a bill which still leaves 12-1/2 million uninsured and you rarely ever hear anybody ask that question of them.
RUSH: All right. I think you probably do know the answer, don’t you?
CALLER: Oh, absolutely I do.
RUSH: Okay. Then answer your own question.
CALLER: It’s not about providing health care. That’s the answer.
RUSH: Absolutely right. It’s not about the uninsured. It can’t possibly be if, after this gargantuan thing (over 2,000 pages), it still leaves 12-1/2 million uninsured. It can’t possibly be about that.
CALLER: But I thought that’s what this is all about?
RUSH: No, no. That’s what they tell us it’s all about so that they can hoodwink people into supporting it. They grab at people’s heartstrings, their hearts. They tug those heartstrings and try to say (sobbing), ‘It’s a terrible thing, so many people uninsured in the richest country in the world. It’s unseemly. It’s a sin and we gotta fix it,’ and everybody supports this until they see the details and then realize that this is not about health care. It’s a bill that expands government, that raises taxes, and depletes the private sector of one-sixth of its value that’s put in control of the Democrat Party. There’s an even better explanation for it, and this is something that is so simple that it’s difficult for people to accept, and that is: This is a bill advanced by who? Liberal Democrats; and the one thing that’s inexorably true about them is they lie.
They have to lie. They cannot be open and honest about what liberalism is. What happens when they are is what you see happening in Massachusetts. They have gotten arrogant and they’re condescending. They’re thinking they hold all three branches now so they don’t have to wear the mask anymore and they can go out and say whatever they really believe, plan what they really want to do. And when they do that people rise up and revolt. They’re going to do that tomorrow in Massachusetts. They’re going to do it big time in November. The health care bill, which they intended to get written in secret, has been made public (no thanks to the mainstream media) and so it is what it is. It’s a reassuring fact, I think, Don, that the country has not gone over the cliff. The country’s not socialist. The people of this country are not wacko leftists like we were being led to believe after the election of Obama.
CALLER: Well, I’m just glad that people have come to realize what’s going on in this country. We really appreciate you over here. I can’t tell you how many of our men listen to you on the Internet, and we appreciate everything you do.
RUSH: That —
CALLER: We’re here fighting for you. We love you and we love all the people that are over there supporting us and we appreciate everything you do, and people like you are the reason that we’re here doing what we’re doing.
RUSH: Well, my God. You have melted my heart. (deep breath) It’s very few people that can render me speechless but you have, because we here in this country have a reverence for what you all are doing above and beyond what you even know. So it’s very humbling to hear you say that.
CALLER: Like you, it’s my calling and it’s what I love to do. It’s hard for me to leave my family back home and come here and do this, but when I’m with my men… I’m a flight medic here. When I’m with my men and I’m treating the soldiers, it’s just my calling. It’s what I was designed to do.
RUSH: It’s what you were born to do. I understand that totally. I often say that about myself. How long you been there?
CALLER: I’ve only been here about five months now. I’ve got about eight more to go.
RUSH: Well, God bless you, sir. Thank you so much.
CALLER: God bless you, Rush.
RUSH: Thank you very much.
CALLER: Yes, sir.
RUSH: I truly appreciate it. That’s Don calling from Iraq over the Internet. That’s a VOIP call: Voice Over IP. Sounds superb. Ladies and gentlemen, he’s got people tearing up here at the EIB Network.
It’s not often that I share with you things that I see floating around the Internet that are mass-spam mailed, but this one’s kind of interesting. You never know if the origin here is truthful, but I’ll just read you what it says. ‘This was an article from the St. Petersburg Times Newspaper on Sunday. The Business section asked readers for ideas on ‘How Would You Fix the Economy?’ This article was one of the ideas submitted… ‘Dear Mr. President, Please find below my suggestion for fixing America’s economy. Instead of giving billions of dollars to companies that will squander the money on lavish parties and unearned bonuses, use the following plan.
”You can call it the ‘Patriotic Retirement Plan:’ There are about 40 million people over 50 in the work force. Pay them $1 million apiece severance for early retirement with the following stipulations: 1) They MUST retire. Forty million job openings — Unemployment fixed. 2) They MUST buy a new American CAR. Forty million cars ordered — Auto Industry fixed. 3) They MUST either buy a house or pay off their mortgage — Housing Crisis fixed. It can’t get any easier than that!! P.S. If more money is needed, have all members in Congress pay their taxes… Mr. President, while you’re at it, make Congress retire on Social Security and Medicare. I’ll bet both programs would be fixed pronto!” Now, if you run the numbers on this (and I haven’t done it), if you’re gonna give 40 million people a million dollars each, I don’t know how many billions or trillions you’re looking at.
I’m not good at numbers in my head, but the point here is to contrast it. Obama has spent $2.3 trillion additional, added to the national debt, this year. This program that this guy proposed would cost nowhere near that. It’s the same thing with health insurance. If you really wanted to insure the uninsured, you could do it. There are 12 million uninsured people that want it. The rest don’t particularly want health insurance. They want to buy it. But this health insurance plan is going to require that you buy it or go to jail or pay a fine or both. But we ran the numbers on this. You can insure these 12 million people — the 12 million that want health insurance that can’t afford it — for about $30 billion a year, which is chump change compared to this $2 trillion we’re talking about spending on Obamacare.