RUSH: Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Every… Well, never mind. Here comes the Democrat strategery: ‘Republicans are gonna take away all of your benefits. Republicans are gonna take away everything! Republicans are gonna make you get sick and die. The Republicans want you dead! That’s what the repeal of Obamacare means.’ They had a little press conference today to talk about the Democrat legislative agenda. And during the press conference Debbie Wasserman Schultz from Florida spoke and said this…
SCHULTZ: Under the Republican repeal effort, insurance companies would once again be able to drop people when they get sick, exactly when coverage is needed most. Children with pre-existing conditions would be denied coverage while insurance companies would again be able to impose devastating, annual and lifetime caps. Young people will not be able to stay on their parents’ insurance until their age 26. Pregnant women and breast cancer survivors could be denied coverage. Millions thrown back into the Medicare Part D doughnut hole. Plain and simple, repealing health care reform would hurt millions of Americans.
RUSH: So it starts now. This is the battle, and this is the typical way the Democrats play this: Make up total lies, make up total scare tactics. It’s just like, ‘The Republicans are gonna kick you outta your house! Republicans gonna take away your Social Security! Republicans are going to do that!’ There aren’t any ‘benefits’ to Obamacare. All you need to know is number of companies that, in order to stay in business, have been granted waivers from having to follow the law of Obamacare. It’s over 200 now. Two hundred and fifty waivers have been granted to American corporations exempting them from the rigors of the law so that they can stay in business. Here’s Rosa DeLauro, same press conference today.
DeLAURO: (whispering) The public has come to appreciate when your child can stay on until the age of 26, when you have a pre-existing condition and you can now get insurance, when you are a small business and you can get a tax credit. They are not going to repeal it. It is disingenuous. It is nothing but political theater.
RUSH: Uhhh, how many kids are on policies now up ’til age 26? How much of that has really kicked in? Preexisting conditions? Last I read about that, that hasn’t even happened, and there’s some major controversy about it. I’m having a mental block. There was something about it before I left here. All of this is smoke and mirrors. The dirty little secret here is that the death panels are in full play. They’re back! Death panels are full-fledged empowered here. This is health care rationing. It’s with Obamacare that people are gonna die, and it’s with Obamacare that people are gonna die based on who the government thinks ought to die. ‘As the secretary shall decide,’ I think is the phrase in the health care law. That would be Kathleen Sebelius.
Here’s Nancy Pelosi, same press conference.
PELOSI: (haltingly) If everyone in America was very, very pleased with his or her health insurance and had no complaints and had access to quality, affordable health care in our country, it still would have been necessary for us to pass the health care reform bill because we could not sustain the system. To say we’re going to repeal it is to do very serious violence to the national debt and deficit.
RUSH: Well (sigh), that’s just not true. Again. It’s just the opposite. The deficit and the national debt are imperiled because of Obamacare. We don’t have the money. It spends and spends and spends. Never in the course of this country’s history has so much taxpayer money been spent with so little to show for it. From TARP to the stimulus bill, all these things that add up, with not one thing to show for it except a larger and more powerful government. Now, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, just to remind you, is on record claiming that Obamacare does not require you to buy health insurance. It most certainly does, and there are 16,000 new IRS agents to be hired to make sure that you do.
Where does this ‘penalty’ come into play? If you’re not required to buy health insurance, why is there a penalty if you don’t? So you can take what Ms. Wasserman Schultz says and disregard it practically every time she opens her mouth. From the Hospital Review, December 27th: ‘Few People Signing up for New Preexisting Condition Coverage — Although almost 6 million people are thought to be eligible for state-run preexisting condition insurance plans set up under the healthcare reform law, HHS said only 8,011 people were signed up as of Nov. 1, according to a report by the American Medical News.’ Eight thousand people!
People are not making a mad dash to sign up for preexisting coverage, ’cause most people instinctively know that this is not the panacea that the Democrats have sold it as. It’s a total waste of time to even debate the merits of this, to even go point by point. Folks, this whole thing is a sham, and everything the Democrats say — just trust me, everything the Democrats say — about their health care bill is not true. Its purpose was not health care. Its purpose was not increased insurance coverage. It was not improved health care. That was not the purpose of the bill at all. The purpose of the bill was to wipe out a large segment of the private sector, placing it under control of the government. This is all about the expansion of the government, power over the individual, loss of liberty and freedom, pure and simple. It’s about the march of socialism in this country, pure and simple. That’s all it was, and the fact remains that a vast majority of the American people understand it and want no part of it.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: F. Chuck Todd, I want you to hear this before we go to the break. F. Chuck Todd, I mentioned this earlier, attempting to intimidate Republicans into not going forward with this health care repeal or any investigation of the regime.
TODD: I am curious to see, do Republicans want the first impression they give this month to be about fights in the past? You know, is the first 25 days of the Republicans being in charge of the House going to be about which investigations are they gonna launch and the attempt to repeal health care, essentially looking backwards, they look like they’re looking backwards, and you do wonder what is the middle going to see out of that.
RUSH: Chuck, the middle voted to repeal the Obama agenda! Chuck — often on this program I am addressing Chuck personally lately, seems like a lot — Chuck, the middle, these precious independents swarmed to the polls in droves in November to vote Republican to repeal the Obama agenda. It’s strange, I bet Chuck didn’t worry about Obama looking back for the first two years blaming Bush every day, did he?
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RUSH: Now to the phones. We’re gonna start in Miami. Chuck, great to have you here, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Good afternoon, Rush. Let me start by saying Happy New Year and happy birthday.
RUSH: Thank you, sir, very much.
CALLER: Thank you for everything you do, sir. And I’ve got to say, I think Obama is the most corrupt president we ever had. To get Obamacare passed, he bribed more senators and congressmen than Al Capone ever thought about doing.
RUSH: (laughing) Well, that’s true.
CALLER: With the Cornhusker affair and all the union deals and everything, it was outrageous.
RUSH: Yeah. If it weren’t for that, that law would have never seen the light of day. If it had not been purchased, you’re absolutely right. Some people might think, ‘That’s not corruption, Rush. That’s just the way things are done.’ That, in a lot of people’s book, is corruption. Look, I don’t think there’s any doubt about it. There’s a somewhat related topic. Peter Schweizer, whose work we quoted on this show before — he’s is an author who has written several interesting books, treatises on the regime — has a post someplace (I haven’t seen it but people are referencing it) asking the question: Could Obama actually be doing what he’s doing to the economy on purpose? He says it may sound crazy to ask the question.
It’s not crazy to ask the question; it’s late to ask the question! I, as you people know, have been proffering that as a prediction or as an assertion for nearly two years, particularly under the auspices in which Obama’s offered in all this so-called economic policy solution stuff. None of it’s guaranteed. None of it had any hope of working as designed. None of it! None of what he’s done is gonna create a single job in the private sector. None of it. The drilling moratorium on oil in the Gulf? What, that’s not purposeful? We know the guy has a chip on his shoulder about the oil industry. We know he’s got a chip on his shoulder about capitalism. We know he’s got a chip on his shoulder about this country. I think the fact that more and more people are starting to ask the question now is an indication that more and more people are actually considering it.
It’s a tough thing for a lot of people to accept that they’ve actually elected a president who intends harm to the US economy. To a lot of people it’s just so foreign. A lot of people not liking the United States you can accept, but the president? But more and more people starting to ask the question. Now, that’s not per se corrupt. But some of the ways in which these policies have been enacted into law certainly are. Would you say it’s corrupt to use taxpayer dollars to buy search results in Google for propaganda purposes, to spread your own lies about your own health care bill, when most people think that the search engine just pulls up what’s the best answer to the question? You know, most people don’t have the slightest idea you can buy search results. They know you can buy ads. Most people don’t know you can buy search results, then you learn that your government’s using your tax dollars to do it to further their own propaganda?
Marilyn in Dallas, you’re next, great to have you on the EIB Network. Hi.
CALLER: Oh, welcome back, Rush!
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: You’ve been gone too long. Don’t do that to us.
RUSH: (chuckles) Well, I’m glad to be back.
CALLER: Hello?
RUSH: Yeah, hi.
CALLER: Hello?
RUSH: Yes. Hello, Marilyn. Testing, one, two, three, four.
CALLER: Rush?
RUSH: Yes, I’m here.
CALLER: Oh, I’m sorry. I pulled the phone out. I got so excited about talking to you.
RUSH: You unplugged your own phone, huh?
CALLER: Yes. I unplugged my phone. Anyway I was calling about the sound bites you played earlier about the Democrats trying to warn the Republicans that they’re going to undo some really popular ‘benefits,’ in particular the one that says that Medicare recipients will receive 50% off of their drugs when they hit the ‘doughnut hole’?
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: That is not a benefit. Instead of being popular, it’s one of the most destructive parts in the bill, because if you look closer at the bill, what it does… It doesn’t say that the government can pay 50% of your cost during the doughnut hole; what it says is that the government has the power to go into the drug company and demand that the drug company discount that drug in the doughnut hole by 50%. Now, that eats into their profit. But not only that, if they don’t do that, then the drug company that makes that particular pill, that drug is gonna be taken off of Medicare’s approved list in the future. So that means that drug will never be able to be covered by a drug company again.
RUSH: You’re mostly right about this, and this is all by design. No question about it. I’m glad you called, Marilyn. Thanks much.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: It’s amazing how history repeats itself and amazing how involved in that the media is. Okay, the Republicans have been elected. Among the things that they have been elected to do is cut spending. We have budget, 1.3, $1.4 trillion. The Democrats are now out of power. So the Republicans and Boehner said, ‘We’re gonna cut a hundred billion dollars.’ And the mantra has begun, ‘Oh, yeah? Where are you gonna cut? I want to see it. You don’t touch Social Security; you don’t touch Medicare; you don’t cut Medicaid, where you gonna cut a hundred billion dollars?’ It should be easy as pie. It should be easy as pie. A hundred billion is not even the equivalent of a dime in this budget, a hundred billion, and yet the media’s picked it up, ‘Republicans haven’t identified which hundred billion they will cut.’ And of course since they haven’t identified it that means the media will identify it for you: ‘They’re gonna eliminate Social Security; they’re gonna eliminate Medicare; they’re gonna eliminate school lunch, that’s what Republicans are gonna do. They’re gonna cut all these wonderful benefits and so forth.’ Hint, media: That’s what they were elected to do, is to severely pare down spending. We don’t have the money. It’s that simple.
I don’t think the Democrats realize yet the makeup of these Republican freshman coming to town. I don’t think they have the slightest idea the resolve these people have. The Republican leadership may not fully understand the vim and vigor for anti-spending that these people are bringing with them from the hinterlands where they won elections last November. A hundred billion, where you gonna cut a hundred billion? They say a hundred billion is hard because there’s only $400 billion in discretionary spending in the budget. Now, that means that a trillion dollars is untouchable, ostensibly. One of the things they can do is to repeal Obamacare. I mean we’re talking a huge amount of money there and there is a huge groundswell to do that. But only $400 billion discretionary is one of the problems that has to be dealt with. This is one of the tricks that the left has used over the years to have all these programs be called untouchable, all these entitlements, you can’t touch ’em. Who says? Who says you can’t? All you have to do is write a new law, you gotta pass it, you get the president to sign it, could be a tough thing, but there are any number of ways here to attack this.
To say that there are no spending cuts of any size that can be made is to basically agree with the premise that there was no reason to have last year’s election, that there’s no reason to ever have anybody but Democrats in office. A hundred billion dollars in this climate, given these elections and their results last November ought to be a piece of cake. And if not a piece of cake, it shouldn’t be anywhere near the impossible category.
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RUSH: John in Connecticut, it’s great to have you, sir, on the Rush Limbaugh program. Hi.
CALLER: (silence)
RUSH: John in Connecticut, hello, sir?
CALLER: (silence)
RUSH: Not there.
CALLER: (silence)
RUSH: John, are you there?
CALLER: Yes, I am.
RUSH: Oh, great to have you, John, hi.
CALLER: I just was saying this is a real privilege. One of my… This is the best Christmas present, even though it’s belated, a little bit late.
RUSH: Well, thank you.
CALLER: It’s the best Christmas present I’ve had this year.
RUSH: Thank you very much.
CALLER: My comment is that I’ve been listening to the pundits and the liberal press talk about, you know, Republicans’ number one project should be to repair the economy. Get the economy going and create jobs. My argument is repealing Obamacare is probably the first step in repairing the economy and creating jobs, and I had another thing that would dovetail into that as well.
RUSH: You’ve got 30 seconds. Go.
CALLER: Oh, okay! My other thing was that everyone’s talking about the frustration Obama had. I think Obama’s frustration may be that he’s tried everything to ruin this economy and this system. I think he might be discouraged that he hasn’t done it so far and that’s where his anxiety is coming from.
RUSH: Well, you know, I’d like to talk about that tomorrow. That’s an interesting thought: Is Obama discouraged because he hasn’t had as much success in creating damage and havoc as he would like? Hmmm. Hmmmmmmm! Remember, a lot of what he’s done (chuckles) is gonna take years to unravel. He has planted a lot of time bombs set to go off. Health care? The number of time bombs in that thing that go off year after year after year, I shudder to think.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Just a heads-up here, folks. The news media is now all claiming (this is part of the big push here to oppose the Republicans) that repealing Obamacare will cost hundreds of billions of dollars and hurt the economy and hurt jobs. (laughing) These people are laughably shameless.