RUSH: Paul Krugman is an Obamaite, he’s an economist, he’s a Nobel Prize-winning economist, folks, which tells you everything you need to know about the Nobel Prize. The New York Times columnist, economist, took a few questions at a lecture that he gave last week, took a few questions from the audience. And one question was on America’s massive and rising national debt. And Krugman admitted that the debt will pose a problem, eventually, not yet. Not until we get the next Republican president will the debt be a problem. And he said he admitted it’s gonna be tough to pay for entitlement programs with an aging population and increasing health care costs.

Now, please pay attention. Look at me here, because Krugman is considered a near godlike figure on the left. Krugman is an Obamaite. When Krugman speaks, it may as well be the Democrat Party, the regime, and he has acolytes. So he admits it’s gonna be tough to pay for entitlement programs because the population is getting older and health care costs are rising. Krugman told this audience that we’re going to need more revenue in order to handle these problems. He then took a stab at explaining where we’re going to get the revenue, and the first thing he said was we’re going to have to raise taxes on the middle class.

Now, if Paul Krugman is saying it, bank on the fact that it’s already in the works on the Democrat side. It is going to happen. The middle class is already paying higher taxes, by the way, which is in an e-mail that I read to you at the beginning of the program. Krugman also said that we’re gonna have to make tough decisions about health care. Specifically, Paul Krugman said, paying for care that has no demonstrated medical benefit is going to have to stop, meaning treatment for old people who are gonna die anyway, has to stop. That’s what this means. The solution, Krugman says, is death panels and sales taxes. In quotes, that’s what he said. Death panels and sale taxes is how we handle rising debt and rising health care costs.

Now, do you remember Obama and every other liberal going nuts over the accusation by Sarah Palin that there would be death panels? Everybody in the media, the Democrats went nuts and said there’s no such thing, and Palin was lying, and how dare she say this kind of thing? Remember there were promises under Obamacare that you’d be able to keep your doctor? If you like your plan, you get to keep your plan and your premium’s gonna go down by $2,000, $2,500. Do you remember all that? Because I do. And I’m sure you do, too. You keep your doctor if you like it. That isn’t gonna change. You keep your health plan if you like it. That isn’t gonna change. It already is. And your premiums are gonna drop by $2,500 a year.

Obamacare, they said, was gonna bend the cost curve downward, and it’s not gonna raise taxes, and it was gonna reduce the deficit. This is what everybody was told. In the run up to the vote on Obamacare, this is what every American was told in their effort to sell this, and everything you were told is untrue. Everything you were told turns out to be wrong. Everything we were told turns out to be incorrect. Health care costs are exploding, you can’t keep your own doctor, your premiums are skyrocketing, the cheapest plan is gonna be $4,000 a person, family of four, 16 to 20 grand. And we’re gonna need new revenue on top of the massive tax increases already in Obamacare. And now Paul Krugman admits, “Yep, we’re gonna need death panels.”

And, by the way, he’s not the only one. Steven Rattner, who was Obama’s first car czar, in a New York Times column, same place Krugman works, also admitted we’re gonna need death panels. Yet Sarah Palin was made to pay a political price for this. Sarah Palin, the first to title this panel “the death panel.” Here now they’re starting to admit it. And, of course, folks, it’s true. It’s the only way they know to deal with this, versus health savings accounts, versus you being in charge. Imagine you having control over your insurance cost. Imagine you being able to choose whatever doctor you want to go to, for whatever malady. Imagine you being able to choose your doctor or your provider based on the best price you can get. Imagine there not being a death panel denying you treatment because of your age.

Imagine that all being up to you. It’s the way it used to be. Not to sound like an old fuddy-duddy. You know, parents would tell their kids they walked 18,000 miles with no shoes in the snow to get to school every day, not doing that. But when I was growing up this is exactly how it was. We went to the doctor, we went to the dentist, when needed, and we got a bill. Now, admittedly it was a small town. Occasionally the doctor even came to the house if my brother or me were too sick and we couldn’t get to his office. But we got a bill. There wasn’t an insurance company. There wasn’t a copay. There wasn’t any of this stuff. And that’s just in the fifties. Anyway, okay, I appreciate your patience in indulging me. But, folks, I’m really focused on what we can all do here. I’m really focused on what can be. I’m focused on what damn well ought to be, as the future unfolds.

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RUSH: John in Philadelphia. Great to have you, sir. Thank you for waiting, and hello.

CALLER: Hello, Rush. Mega dittos from the City of Brotherly Love. I wanted to ask you, as this Obamacare –which, as you’re saying, is now the law of the land — as this unfolds over the next several years, do you foresee us as citizens, as we get older and thicker, going before boards and trying to defend or justify our right to continue living? Or do you think that maybe we’ll kind of rise up and say, “Enough is enough!” and collapse this health care system?

RUSH: That remains to be seen. To answer your first question, one doesn’t preclude the other. You could have people rising up and say, “You know, I’m not gonna do this anymore,” while at the same time having the thing that causes that: People having to go before a panel and beg to live. That will happen. People or their representatives are going to lobby this panel of people, and a case will be made why this person deserves to be treated. It’s either gonna be that or there’s gonna be a manual with guidelines that are impersonal, that are based purely on statistics, and the doctors or the panel will go down here and see how many of the bullet points are met.

Say there’s a criteria for 20 bullet points to determine whether somebody gets treated or not, and you gotta have 15 of them in order to be denied treatment, and you’re at 16 or 17. There are gonna be people lobbying against it. “What do you mean I can’t get treated!” I guarantee you that’s gonna happen. People want to live! They’re not gonna put up with it. I don’t think the American people will accept it. I don’t think we’ve gotten to the point yet where the American people are gonna sit dispassionately by while some faceless panel in a distant capital says to the family, “Sorry. Time’s up for Nana.”

CALLER: I wonder if these initial panels will take into consideration your party affiliation.

RUSH: Well, more likely it’ll be whether or not your family donated and how much.

CALLER: (laughing) That’s a good point. Yes, sir.

RUSH: Don’t think that’s not gonna be known. It’s already known who contributes and to who. It’ll never be proven that such a criteria is selected and used. It’ll never be proven, but don’t doubt you’re gonna have people who suspect it. Why, you already are.

CALLER: If we take this, then the country we know is over. But if we stand up to it, then the American spirit and strong will, I think, still does exist. It might take several years to get there.

RUSH: Well, I go back to this ABC show with the woman and Obama. You’ve heard me tell the story ad infinitum here. The woman was asking the president whether or not he would grant her mother the right to live by virtue of getting a pacemaker. That’s not the job of a president. The president doesn’t have that kind of power. This guy wants that power. He wants you asking him for permission for your parent to have a pacemaker. This woman, she wasn’t happy with the answer she got. But she’s an average citizen. She’s not gonna go raise hell about it. She’s not gonna make a target of herself, and most people aren’t.

Most people know they don’t have a chance against the federal government, so they’re not gonna want any part of it. They’re not gonna make targets of themselves. Not as individuals. But I don’t know that we’re ever gonna get to see the board, John. I mean, you might petition to lobby the board personally, but I don’t know that you’re gonna be granted permission. I don’t think there’s gonna be a mechanism for every American with a grievance to go before this federal panel. I don’t think you’ll have a chance to see the board. They’re gonna be faceless bureaucrats. They’re not gonna want to be known. They’re gonna be like the Chinese politburo, and we never even saw their pictures — and, if you did, you knew that they’d been whacked.