RUSH: Here is Ross in Cincinnati. I’m glad you called, sir. You’re on the Rush Limbaugh program. Great to have you here.
CALLER: Rush Limbaugh, thank you.
RUSH: Yes, sir.
RUSH: So if you, say, have to take out a student loan, that just goes out of what you have to pay back.
CALLER: Correct.
RUSH: Now, why did they do this?
CALLER: I’m not entirely certain. I have an idea. I believe that the student health insurance is intermingled with the staff health insurance, so by adding a bunch of young blooded healthy people to their health insurance premium plans, they bring down the premiums for the staff.
RUSH: Are you saying? Are you reveling the accusation on this program that those tightwad administrators, professors, graduate assistants and administrative types are trying to glom on to you healthy young kids in order to get their health insurance premiums down by imposing costs on you that you otherwise would not impose on yourself?
CALLER: Well, it gets better. In order to not pay theirs, you have to have insurance and you have to sign a waiver. You can’t just say, ‘I don’t want it.’ You have to sign this little document that has a little clause that says, ‘I understand that if my insurance policy does not meet their minimum requirements, my health insurance waiver will be declined and I will be responsible for paying a student health insurance premium,’ and in their requirement, they allow at least 20 mental health visits per year. Now, I did a little research —
RUSH: Wait. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. In the requirement…? What do you mean, allow 20 mental visits?
CALLER: Yeah, saying out loud I feel like I need one of those mental health visits right now. But I did a little research and our state health insurance that we provide for our state elected officials —
RUSH: Yeah?
CALLER: — does not meet this minimum requirement. It only allows for ten mental health visits per year.
RUSH: What do you mean ‘allows’? You mean if you think you’re going…? You mean it’s part of the coverage. It’s part of the plan?
CALLER: Correct. Correct.
RUSH: If you’re going One Goes Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, that’s a benefit?
CALLER: The insurance company has to cover it, yes. That’s part of their requirement.
RUSH: Well, what college student doesn’t think they’re losing their mind?
RUSH: Especially… (laughing) Gee whiz.
CALLER: In addition to this, in order to waive it you have to provide them with all of your insurance company’s information, including your insurance company’s name, the telephone number for the insurance company, your policy number, the name of the policyholder. So if you’re not the policyholder but your parent is you have to give them their information.
RUSH: All right, what happens if you don’t do this?
CALLER: Then you can’t go.
RUSH: You can’t go? What? What if you drop your coverage after you’re already enrolled and you’re taking classes? They kick you out?
CALLER: I imagine. (chuckles) It’s a requirement.
RUSH: You know what this sounds like to me? I’ll tell you something. It has nothing to do with insurance. This was way back when in the early days of my broadcast career. Everybody thinks that it was all a bowl of cherries because nobody knows (sigh) all the trouble I’ve seen. But I worked at a place once… I’m even a little recalcitrant in mentioning this, but I worked at a place that sounds like this university, trying to make you think you’re crazy. I worked at a place once where the guy that ran it came up to me and said, ‘You seem depressed. Is everything okay?’
‘What do you mean?’
Well, the upshot is he wanted me to check-in to a mental health place and end up doing commercials for it. He wanted me to spend two weeks in the place to do commercials for it. It was a ruse to make me think I was losing my mind just to get a new client. (interruption) Well… (laughing) We didn’t do live remotes in those days. I fortunately graduated to live remotes. At any rate, you know, we all have to eat the excrement sandwiches out there. Some days you get the mustard and mayonnaise, and some days you don’t.