RUSH: We want to welcome back to the EIB Network our insurance expert, the roving, never know exactly where she is someplace in Georgia Stacy.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. How are you?
RUSH: I’m doing great. How are you?
CALLER: Oh, it’s good to have a Friday off.
RUSH: I wouldn’t know. What’s the latest insurance business? Are you still in it?
CALLER: Yeah, but I’m desperately looking for a way out. The thing that killed the CLASS Act is the same thing that’s gonna kill off the rest of us. If the Supreme Court only shuts down the individual mandate —
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: — and declares it severable, the exact same reason that the CLASS Act won’t work is why private insurance won’t work. And that’s a little spooky, I mean to depend on a 5-4 decision with that one judge, Kennedy —
RUSH: Anthony Kennedy, yeah.
CALLER: Yeah, being the arbiter of the rest of my life kind of makes me want to pull my hair out. And before we get started, I did want to ask you how your house training is going, because I’ve been house training a puppy, too, and that’s been one of the more challenging events of my life.
RUSH: Well, you know, when you’re housebreaking a puppy, you gotta catch ’em at every instance or you lose ground.
CALLER: Oh, yeah.
RUSH: And the reason why you catch ’em at every instance is because they have to be told, somehow informed immediately it’s a no-no.
CALLER: Are you using a crate?
RUSH: No.
CALLER: No? Oh, the crate was invaluable for me.
RUSH: You mean to put ’em in?
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: No, we have an area of the kitchen caged off. It’s the same thing. I guess it’s a larger crate, but yeah.
CALLER: But is it a small section? Because puppies at that age are gonna have a natural aversion to soiling their sleeping area, and the logic behind it is when you can’t have your eye on ’em every second you keep ’em in it.
RUSH: That’s exactly what’s happening.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: But, for example — I’m sure people really want to hear this — the other night I let the little puppy out, little puppy did its business, I said, “Okay, I’m good for at least an hour here,” so rather than leave the thing in the cage in the kitchen I took it with me to the library. Within five minutes it goes up on the sofa and tinkle, tinkle, tinkle.
CALLER: (laughing)
RUSH: I looked down, “You little son of a… how do you have any left?”
CALLER: I wonder if the congresswoman will, you know, add diapers for puppies on to her diaper list?
RUSH: We had to put Wellesley in diapers when she was in heat.
CALLER: I’m getting ready to go through that. I’m not looking forward to that at all.
RUSH: We got Wellesley back from the vet today, she’s being spade. Nah, this one’s taking a little bit more time than the other two did.
CALLER: Well, okay, off the fun stuff. I was telling Mr. Snerdley, you know, Darrell Issa sent a question to DHHS a while back asking if they had actually procured the database that was discussed way early on in this whole fiasco that would take every American’s claim information and ship it off to DC?
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: Remember that?
RUSH: Part of their health records, too, right?
CALLER: Right. Right. Electronic health records and all their claims experience was gonna go to DC, and supposedly be used for comparative effectiveness research.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: That was the claim.
RUSH: Right. Yeah.
CALLER: And Mr. Issa sent a request out asking, you know, did you do this, if so, who got it? And apparently DHS hasn’t answered him, last I heard. So since I had today off of work and it’s been bugging me because in my company, we’ve been circulating three scenarios for what we’ll have to do to meet that requirement. And until we get final word from Washington, we’re just kind of treading water waiting to see. And Washington has a really bad habit of telling us to pull rabbits out of our butts. So we try to get a jump on them any chance we can. We’re still waiting to hear, is this happening, how is this happening, all this good stuff. Well, today, since I’m off work, I decided to go online and look it up. I don’t know how it is that little old me, nobody here in Georgia can find this, but the whole Republican caucus in Congress can’t find it? A $16.5 million contract was awarded to a company called Ingenix. Now, I don’t know anything about them, I’ve never heard of them. But they got that award prior to February of 2011 —
RUSH: Okay, to do what? I’m having trouble keeping up here.
CALLER: To build the database. To build the database, the database and the infrastructure that would take massive amounts of data. Every time you go to the doctor, you go to the pharmacist, you go to the hospital, every time you have an x-ray, every time you get your cholesterol checked, all of that information for every —
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: — single human being has to go.
RUSH: What are you surprised at?
CALLER: Well, I’m surprised that Congress doesn’t know this. And I can find it, I mean granted it wasn’t easy to find.
RUSH: Well, how do you know they don’t know it?
CALLER: Well, if he knew, why is he sending DHS a question about it? Why isn’t he saying, “Who’s Ingenix, how did they get this? Because I’m here to tell you this much.”
RUSH: I have no idea, but I’ll just tell you this. I have a series of doubts, maybe questions about just how opposed to health care are some Republicans really.
CALLER: Oh.
RUSH: I’m not saying this about Issa, don’t misunderstand, but if I did a Google search I could find it. There are plenty of Republicans who have said, “I don’t want to repeal the whole thing. There are certain elements of this thing that our voters might like.”
CALLER: Rush, you remember when I called you with the hangover the day after the 2012 election? I took the day off work.
RUSH: I’m trying to think. You’re hung over most times. I’m trying to remember the time you weren’t.
CALLER: (laughing) Hey, now, most times I’m on my lunch break. Be nice.
RUSH: All right.
CALLER: No, I called you and told you that I was really happy but I was scared to death that they’re gonna get up there and then they’re not going to be serious about it, that they weren’t gonna do what needs to be done. Right now my company is programming triggers into our computer system. Basically, we’re having to create a system beside a system — it would be like running the Mac OS versus Windows 2007 on a mainframe scale, that takes a massive amount of work. And right now we don’t know if it’s for nothing, we don’t know if they’re gonna flip the switch. I mean it’s just insanity.
RUSH: Well, I know, but, Stacy, you’re not alone here. Every business out there doesn’t know what they face.
CALLER: Well, I know, but you know, the mom-and-pop shop on the corner store who’s getting robbed by Superman, they’re not gonna be shut down by the federal government if they can’t go live with this on the date that we’re —
RUSH: They’ll be shut down for different reasons. They’ll shut themselves down because they won’t be able to afford to stay in business.
CALLER: Very true. Very true.
RUSH: Or they’ll shut down because they can’t do business with all the added costs they’re gonna be faced with. This is why there is such anxiety and fear out there at every level of American business. Nobody can get a handle on what their costs are gonna be, and nobody yet can get a handle on just how big the iron fist of government’s gonna be in this, and one of the reasons is, again, where is the Republican National Committee? Where is the single voice representing the Republican frame of mind on this or the Republican policy position on this? Are we about repealing it or is that just a campaign slogan for our presidential candidates?
The thing that’s frustrating to me is we’ve got the greatest opportunity that we’ve ever had to contrast who we are with this bunch. This CLASS Act not being able to be implemented because they can’t afford it is a great illustration of how the whole thing should have been handled. If you can’t prove to the federal government that you’ve got the funding for this then you can’t implement it. It was the law that stopped ’em here. It was not anything else. It was the law as written by Judd Gregg in one instance with the CLASS Act. You can make us wish that similar laws had been attached to other parts of the health care bill. But you’re in the insurance business, people who are not in the insurance business essentially — Rick Wagoner, shortly after he became CEO at General Motors, (paraphrasing) “I did not know that the number one responsibility I had was administering a health care program. I’m supposed to be making cars.”
Well, everybody is looking at the same thing. They’re not in the health care business like you are, but they’re gonna be impacted by it one way or the other and to whatever degree and they don’t know because there’s not a clear side to choose here if you are a business. Look at the way Obama’s co-opting all these people. The standard operating procedure is to think that big business equals Republicans. Big business doesn’t equal anything other than who’s in power. Like these people on Wall Street. Goldman Sachs and all these Wall Street firms are in bed with Obama! They’ve been bailed out by Obama! They’re gonna be bailed out again by Obama if they need to be. Big business lives with two things: either fear of what opposing the government will do to ’em or the riches they can get by being in bed with government. Those are the two options. And the Republicans, where are they in that equation? We don’t know. Ergo, there’s all kinds of anxiety, angst, and confusion. Stacy, as always, great to hear from you, hung over or not.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: By the way, wait ’til the unions hear about this. “Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the nation’s largest private employer, is scaling back health care coverage for future part-time workers while raising premiums for many of its full-time workers, particularly tobacco users. The discounter, which employs more than 1.4 million workers, said that rising health care costs are forcing it to eliminate health care coverage for future part-time workers who work less than 24 hours a week. Many workers will also see their premiums rise, and the company will be reducing by half the amount it contributes for health care expenses that are not covered under their plan. Tobacco users will particularly be hit hard, seeing premiums increase by about 40 percent, the company said. Greg Rossiter, a Wal-Mart spokesman, said that the decision was not in response to the new health care law but rather to the harsh realities of escalating health care costs,” which are only going to get worse as the regime’s health care plan is implemented.