RUSH: What is it? Today’s Wednesday, right? So it was just two days ago, two days ago, right here on this very program, that somebody asked me, “Why in the world are they still selling Obamacare, Rush? It’s the law of the land. Why are there ads on TV? Why are we getting stories about how the California health exchange is gonna be run by Democrats to sell Obamacare? Why is there still a campaign for this?”
And I, El Rushbo, said, “Because they remember how health care resulted in a shellacking defeat in the midterms in 2010. And they do not want that repeated in the midterms of 2014. They want to win the House in 2014, the Democrats do. They realize what an albatross Obamacare is. They don’t want a repeat of 2010.” I said it all day Monday. I said it all day yesterday, starting with an appearance on Fox & Friends on the Fox News Channel.
So after two days of hammering on this program, nowhere else, I must say, nowhere else was it even being discussed, “Why are they selling Obamacare?” It wasn’t even being discussed, this ongoing campaign. People in this audience were curious, and you called, we provided the answer. All it took was two days, and yesterday the regime announces that they are delaying the implementation of the employer mandate for Obamacare until after the 2014 election. They announce it on a day that they hope — you know, leading into the Fourth of July long weekend — that low-information voters will never hear about it, and nobody else will hear about it.
The media is all caught up in the brilliant politics of it. The media thinks it is a brilliant political move. I have a lot of questions about this, but one basic question. I thought, listening to the Democrats, listening to Nancy Pelosi, listening to President Obama, that this was the answer to every health care problem in America. I’ll never forget Pelosi on the day the House passed the bill, and maybe it might have been the day that Obama signed it. She was at a microphone and she was barely able to contain herself she was so happy. She kept saying, “Affordable health care for all Americans.”
I was watching that, by the way, “Does this women really not know what she just did?” You know, it’s a never-ending debate about Pelosi. Is she really the idiot she appears to be, or is that just an act? And I still don’t know. The odds are she is, but she’s also a liberal, which means she’s a schemer, so it opens up possibilities. But really, folks, I thought Obamacare was wonderful. I thought it was gonna answer all the problems that everybody has in health care. I thought it was the solution to every problem. I thought it was good. I thought it was needed. I thought it was going to lower premiums by $2,500.
I thought it was going to make health care finally affordable for everybody, whenever they wanted it, whatever they needed, that it was finally gonna happen, and that some 30 million poor, lost soul Americans who didn’t have coverage were going to automatically be covered. And that, if you like your policy and your doctor and all, you get to keep it. I thought it was magic. But did you notice almost immediately after Obama signed it into law, various industries and individual companies began to be excused from it. The regime immediately signed waivers for favored donors and companies exempting them from it. That kind of puzzled me because I thought it was miraculous what had happened here.
The health care system was in tatters, it was in disarray, and Barack Obama and the Democrat Party finally solved it. It was one of the greatest days in American history, to listen to the Democrat Party. And yet there were all these waivers. And now we’re going to delay the implementation, not of the individual mandate, we’re going to delay the implementation of the employer mandate. I thought this was good. I thought this was the way everybody was gonna get covered. The employer was gonna have to do it. And, if he didn’t, then hello everybody going to the exchange, which is now what’s gonna happen, because the individual mandate stays. It’s just the employer mandate that will not be implemented now until after the 2014 midterm elections.
I have been right and on the cutting edge about much in my career. This, Mr. Snerdley, I’ve gotta put up there in the top five, in 25 years. There are raging arguments even now. “Does the president have the authority to do this? Is it in the bill that the president can do this?” Some bloggers say it is. Other bloggers say, no, the bill does not permit this. Let me ask you a question. If Obamacare can be delayed — and that’s what this is. I mean, employer mandate, if the president decides, “You know what, this thing might actually hurt my party next election, so I’m gonna delay the damage.”
See, what I can’t quite reconcile is, Obama and the Democrats sold this as a utopia program. They sold this as a panacea. They sold this as a magic bullet solution. They sold this as something every American wants and the world wants, and it’s apparently not that. It’s apparently so bad that to actually have it placed into operation, implemented, would cause the president and his party a lot of harm at the ballot box. Imagine that.
I thought this was going to solidify a Democrat majority because so many Americans wanted this, and it was such a wonderful program, it was such a wonderful piece of legislation. It answered every problem. It addressed every need. It lowered costs. It expanded availability. It brought health coverage and insurance to the uninsured. It was going to bring the deficit down. It was gonna bring the national debt down. Why not implement this thing, this is a magic piece of legislation. Yet for some reason, though, we just can’t implement it before an election?
Now, if the president can decide, “We got a law here but, you know what, implementing it and enforcing it might not help me,” so if he can just delay Obamacare, what else could be delayed that he doesn’t like? Maybe all these new Border Patrol agents in the Hoeven-Corker amendment. Maybe they can be delayed, too, after the law has been signed into law. It can be enforced, delayed, or ignored on the whim of the presidency. What is the reason we go through the legislative process if, when it’s all over, the president can pick and choose what he’s going to allow and what he isn’t going to allow, what he’s going to permit and what he isn’t gonna permit, what he’s gonna implement and what he isn’t gonna implement. Why even go through the legislative process?
You know, we thought Egypt was a country in trouble. Obama just canceled the game. He didn’t want Obamacare to play out, so he canceled it, for now. He’ll play the game, we’ll go back to it when he’s got the Congress in his back pocket. Then he’ll reschedule the game.
I mean, folks, this is the stuff of banana republics. Laws have no meaning. You remember when the president said the Congress was in recess when they weren’t so he could appoint some people who otherwise couldn’t make it? Remember when he rolled the bondholders of General Motors when he took over the car companies? The bondholders are due money; they’re first in line to get paid. He called ’em “greedy.” He told ’em to get the hell out, to eat it for the country.
Remember when he refused to defend the Defense of Marriage Act? The regime just decided, “You know what? We don’t like this bill, and we’re not gonna defend it in federal court.” Remember when he unilaterally granted amnesty to hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens. Just snapped his fingers, just did it. And, of course, his campaign spent millions falsely calling Mitt Romney a tax felon and a murderer.
But laws come and go at the pleasure of a corrupt regime. The IRS serves as the president’s goon squad. His cabinet secretaries buy off businesses and industries one by one. We don’t yet know what the NSA is doing at his behest and I don’t really know what degree of cooperation the Federal Reserve has with Obama. One thing we do know the Fed is doing is bailing out banks left and right.
The Fed dollars are bailing out and propping up rich people all over the place to the detriment of middle-class people. The dollar is becoming more and more worthless. The ability for a family in the middle class to accrue wealth is becoming harder and harder and harder. Sequester? Sequester was an excuse to punish the same people who already got roughed up by the TSA and the IRS. What kind of country do we have now?
At least the people of Egypt had the good sense to turn out in the streets and express displeasure with the way they were treated. At least they turned up in the streets and demanded redress from a fraudulent, lying campaign. But because the employer mandate would potentially harm the Democrats’ prospects in the elections of 2014, we’re gonna delay it. A program that was magical. A program that answered every question and every problem. A program that brought health care to people that didn’t have it, millions of them!
A program that was gonna reduce the federal deficit. A program that was gonna lower health care costs and insurance premiums and all the rest. It’s so wonderful and it’s such a great program, that we dare not implement it, because doing so might hurt the president’s party. So now you know that what you heard here on Monday and Tuesday was exactly right. They are out selling Obamacare, campaigning for Obamacare, even though it is the law of the land, because they know Obamacare is the reason for the Tea Party.
Obamacare is the reason the Democrats got shellacked in the midterms of 2010, and Obamacare and amnesty and the Democrat Party in general could be the reason why the Democrats get shellacked again in the 2014 midterms — and we can’t have that. So we are simply going to delay the suffering. Apparently there’s gonna be a lot of suffering with Obamacare now. Imagine! Apparently there’s going to be a lot of pain. Apparently costs are gonna really go up. Apparently options for health insurance gonna really go down.
Apparently the health care system is gonna get a lot more expensive. Apparently the health care system is becoming a lot more complicated. Apparently it’s gonna be much more difficult to go to the doctor. Apparently they lied about everything. So now the Democrat Party is stuck with it, except they’re not. They’ll wait until after the election where it, in their mind, can’t hurt them.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Besides kicking the Obamacare negatives past the midterm elections, there’s something else going on here, folks. The individual mandate survives. So while your employer, the place you work will not be mandated to provide you health insurance, you’re still gonna be required to have it. Your employer, by the way, can use this year to cancel. If your employer wants to, your employer can say, “Sayonara.” They can get out of this now. That’s right.
Businesses can now kick everybody out of their plans and not pay a penalty, which will then force all of you to the Obama exchanges, which is what Obama wants ultimately anyway because the exchanges are the government. So this is a twofer for Obama. He’s not gonna run the risk of having the implementation of this bill be harmful to the Democrats before the election, and it actually speeds up his ultimate dream — that being the government being sole provider, single payer, single source, of everybody for health care.
We had a caller yesterday, by the way, that suggested — remember this? She suggested, essentially, “Let’s pass the amnesty bill so as to help Marco Rubio get elected and save the country.”
Question: “If we’re gonna do that, should the jury convict an innocent George Zimmerman in order to avoid race riots around the country?”
You tell me.
RUSH: I want to play you some audio sound bites from media members on this because it’s instructive and it’s also humorous. It’s funny, but at the same time I would be remiss if I didn’t remind everybody that the Democrat Party and President Obama have had dreams of national health care for 50-plus years.
They finally made it happen in 2010, and remember it was sold as nirvana, utopia, a panacea. Pelosi: “Affordable health care for all Americans!” It was gonna insure the uninsured. It was gonna lower everybody’s premiums by $2500. “If you like your doctor, keep him. If you like your insurance, keep it. If you like your plan, keep it.” It was gonna reduce the deficit. It was gonna reduce the national debt.
“It’s gonna free up money for roads and bridges and school repair and all that!” I mean, it was just the greatest thing in the world, and yet they really don’t want to implement this thing because it’s gonna harm ’em. The Democrat Party wants to grant waivers. How many waivers did their donors get? And what is a waiver? It’s an exemption. “You don’t have to be bound by it,” Obama said.
Now they’re gonna eliminate the employer mandate, which has some ramifications for you, too, because the personal mandate remains the law of the land. So whereas employers are not going to be required to provide you insurance until 2015 (after the 2014 elections), you still have to have it. Your employer can now basically cancel. He doesn’t have to provide you insurance, folks.
If your employer wants out, if your employer wants to save a bunch of money, they can cancel health care plans. The only thing that might prevent them is they have to compete for quality people — and quality people, employees, can demand decent benefits packages. If Company A doesn’t provide them, they may not be in the running. So there’s that consideration. But, a lot of companies aren’t gonna care.
Here’s a chance to off-load these massively expensive health insurance plans? (snaps fingers) They’ll do that in a New York minute! Where does that leave you? You’re still mandated to either pay a fine or to get coverage. So if your employer doesn’t provide it, where are you gonna go? You’re gonna go to an exchange. That’s where you’re gonna have to go. That element of this actually helps speed up one of Obama’s preferred results here, and that is more people depending on the government.
The more private sector avenues decline, and the less opportunity there is for private sector health insurance, the better for Obama. So if your employer offs his policy? Heh. Fine with Obama! You have to get it somewhere, and your best option is gonna be a government-run exchange. So from that standpoint, it facilitates that — and also from that standpoint it may mitigate what the media is calling a really brilliant political move.
“Oh, yeah! This is gonna spare Obama a bunch of negative feelings in the campaign for 2014.” Really? How many people are gonna be really ticked off if their companies do drop their health insurance coverage? At that point, the Limbaugh Theorem is gonna kick in and the question is gonna become, “How many people are gonna blame Obama for it?” Because Obama did this essentially on the Friday before a long weekend when they do the document dump.
They did it yesterday. He’s not even in the country. It’s the Fourth of July weekend. How many people are gonna know? The first word they might get of it is when their employer cancels the policy, and who are they gonna be mad at? Not Obama. They’re gonna be mad at their company. They’re gonna be mad at the business, and Obama’s gonna look like their salvation, ’cause there’s the exchange.
“Go out and get some coverage,” even though Obama’s the one mandating/causing all this to happen. So it’s unclear yet how this is all gonna manifest itself vis-a-vis the Democrat Party and the 2014 elections. On the surface, at first glance, it would appear to be very damaging to Obama. His health care plan is so bad, it can’t even be implemented. But how many people are gonna know that?
How many people are gonna look at it that way? Don’t forget the Limbaugh Theorem: Obama does not attach to his own plans, his own policies, including this one, even though it’s called Obamacare. Actually, that may not be true. You know, in this case that may be the one place the Limbaugh Theorem doesn’t apply. You look at the polling data: Only 35% of the country supports Obamacare. It is known as “Obamacare,” not “the Affordable Care Act.”
So it may well be that he is attached to this. We’ll just have to wait and see. But the bottom line here is, this plan is so damaging — this plan is so harmful — that the party that put it into place cancels it so as not to be hurt at election time. What are we even doing it for? The Republican Party needs to make a vast, fast move here to repeal the whole thing. The door’s been opened for them again!
A golden opportunity has been presented to ’em. The regime has canceled, has delayed a fundamental element of its own plan! That door is wide open for the Republicans to run in there and say, “See? They’re admitting this thing is unworkable! They’re admitting it’s no good. We just need to get rid of the whole thing.” Whether they succeed or not, a little push-back! Let the party identify with the vast majority of the American people on an issue, and it’s this one.
There are two major issues where the Republican Party could revive itself. All they would have to do is align themselves with the majority thinking in this country. One is Obamacare; the other is amnesty. That’s all they’d have to do. But the Republican Party is more interested in being liked by and having the introductory doors to the Hispanic population opened than they are in being your party — and when it comes to health care? Whew! Who can explain it, other than to say they’re all children of government.
They’re all the children of government. They are all part of the ruling class. They are all Washington, and this is what Washington wants. Let’s go to the audio sound bites. We’ll start with John Harwood last night on CNBC’s the Kudlow Report. Correspondent Harwood. This guy’s been with the New York Times, he’s been with Wall Street Journal, he’s been everywhere, and they’re talking about Obama’s decision to delay the employer mandated, and John Harwood said this…
HARWOOD: The administration in part, I think, hopes to get some benefit from delaying these penalties until after the 2014 elections. They’ve been getting a lot of incoming from Republicans. On the flip side, so that’s a positive for Democrats. On the positive for Republicans, they’re going to use this decision as evidence that the administration itself doesn’t have confidence in the…
KUDLOW: All right.
HARWOOD: …law and try to push harder against some of the things that they can…
KUDLOW: All right.
HARWOOD: (crosstalk) …affect.
RUSH: All right. All right. There’s Harwood. So basically he’s covering his bases on both sides of it. John Dickerson next, and he’s the political director at CBS News. This morning on CBS News This Morning, Charlie Rose, speaking with Dickerson, and Charlie said, “John, what does this mean for health care reform, and what does it say about the politics of health care?” Now, I maintain that Charlie knows what it means. No, I take that back. He doesn’t know. Here’s what Dickerson said.
DICKERSON: As a political matter, this is not good. It sort of contributes to the feeling that the Affordable Care Act is a jalopy they’re trying to roll out of the driveway here barely operational for the president. That’s not good. The problem for Democrats running is that they are already weighed down by the feelings people have about this bill and about the opposition from small business and from businesses of all kinds. And though this delay, again, takes the story from being a chronic ailment, as it gets implemented, it doesn’t really reduce the fact that in a lot of these states where Democrats are running, red states, this law is unpopular.
RUSH: Why are we even doing this? Does somebody — just one person in the media, you’re talking all around this. This bill is a disaster! You all know it, but you’re looking at it, “Gee, can we mitigate the disaster for Obama so it doesn’t hurt him? Can we mitigate it so it hurts the Republicans?” Can somebody just say, “Why are we doing it at all?” It’s not too late. Why are we doing this at all? Listen to how it’s described. It’s a jalopy, they’re trying to roll it out of the driveway, it’s barely operational, Democrats are being weighed down by the feelings people have. Then why are we doing this?
I know you and I know the answer, but my point is, nobody wants this. It’s not good for the country. It’s good for somebody, and that’s why we’re doing it, but it’s not good for the country. And what is becoming apparent, listening to all these media people, they all know it. Anybody paying attention, when you can’t implement this thing ’cause it might hurt the party at the polls, what does it say about it? Especially versus how it was sold, as nirvana, as utopia, as a panacea. Last night on Hannity on Fox, a bunch people were on there, including Joe Trippi. He got a question. “How outrageous is it that individuals have to pay the mandate, but the employers don’t? Isn’t that against everything you stand for, Joe?”
TRIPPI: You raise an important point. The whole reason the employer mandate was there was so that those companies that do provide health care couldn’t just dump their employees off of it. I’m very interested in how the administration’s gonna answer that question, because I do think you raise an important point.
RUSH: And the important point is that there is no penalty now for dumping insurance plans, companies, so they can just dump ’em, can just off-load ’em. Folks, this is a red letter day for businesses. I mean, for 25 years I have been listening to businessmen complain, whine, moan that they’re not CEOs of their companies. They’ve had to become health care experts. That their job, so much time at their job is devoted to making sure their employees have health care, that it’s affordable, the best policy. They hate it. One of the interim CEOs at General Motors said he got into the car business ’cause he loved cars. He didn’t get into the car business because he loves health care, but he had become a health care administrator.
So I’m just telling you there are business after business after business after business who have hated what has happened to this. It’s an employee benefit that has become an albatross. Well, here’s a chance to get rid of it without a penalty, folks. And so Trippi (imitation), “Yeah, I really wonder what’s gonna happen here now. These companies off-load, I wonder, you know, it’s an important point, how the administration’s gonna answer that.” You still have your mandate to buy and have insurance.
Peter Orszag, the former director of OMB, Office of Management and Budget, was on CNBC Squawk Box. His question that he got, “There have been people who have said that this will help the Democrats because whatever problems might have emerged as a result of implementing Obamacare will not be on the table for the midterms. What are you thinking about that, Peter?”
ORSZAG: Obviously, by definition, the administration I think thought that it was beneficial both substantively, and I would imagine politically, to delay or else they wouldn’t have done it.
RUSH: Substantively. If it’s beneficial substantively to them not to do it, then why are we doing it in the first place?
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here’s Debbie in Portland, Oregon, great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hello, Rush. Thank you so much for taking my call.
RUSH: My pleasure. Great to have you here.
CALLER: I would like to thank you first for your work with the lymphoma society. My father is a lymphoma survivor, and due to the care and quality of care he received, he and my mother celebrated their 62nd wedding anniversary on Monday.
RUSH: Ho. Sixty-two years!
CALLER: Sixty-two. And I am flub number three.
RUSH: I can’t imagine anything happier than that. That’s unbelievable.
CALLER: Right. It’s been awesome. And they’re also still in California. I’m a fifth generation Californian, and it’s been painful for conservatives over the 62 years, I can guarantee you that.
RUSH: Let me tell you something, I lived out there in the mid-eighties, and the Republican Party, it was still viable then. Republicans still mattered. Republicans still elected senators, still elected governors, and I hate to say this, but the same time I left is when the doors to illegal immigration opened up in that state and those two things happening the same time, immigration, amnesty, and me leaving, that was it.
CALLER: Well, I lived it. I lived it as a young girl. I’ve lived it as a college student when folks were going to college free ride, and I was working my way ’cause my folks made too much money for me to get a scholarship. So been there, done that, but what I really called to tell you about or make sure that folks were aware on Obamacare, on the individual mandate. As a tax preparer, I have prepared tax returns for over 30 years, and I will guarantee you that people will not realize the individual cost of Obamacare until they get their taxes done for 2014, which won’t be until January of 2015.
RUSH: This is a good point. In real life terms, yeah. Politically they’ll know what’s coming, but the low-information crowd that we’re talking about, they’re not gonna have any idea until 2015. And those that don’t file income taxes may not really feel the full force of it in that way. At some point everybody is gonna understand what a debacle it is, but by that time the tentacles are gonna be so intricately woven in this web of deceit that untangling it is gonna be a mess.
CALLER: Well, and that’s the insidiousness of withholding is you can look at perfectly well educated, successful people, and tell them that their refund has gone down, and they’re mad at you as a preparer. It’s like, wait a minute, no. You know, this is not a free loan to the government. But a lot of them don’t see that as their money.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: So it’s been kind of interesting over the 30 years. The other thing that I wanted to bring to your attention is you say nobody wants this? Well, I can tell you my hairdresser here wants this. My colleague wants this. She thinks her daughter’s gonna get a free mammogram.
RUSH: I know.
CALLER: You can’t believe the look on the woman’s face when I was getting my haircut, I’m surprised I have any hair left, when I told her that her premium was gonna be at least what she’s paying now, if not more.
RUSH: Yeah, you’re right. When I say everybody what I mean is, the political class in Washington knows what a debacle this is. The Democrats are admitting they don’t want it implemented right now. You’re right. I’m giving people the wrong impression here when I say nobody wants it, because, you’re right, so many people think that it’s gonna be free health care, free mammograms, free this, free that.
CALLER: Right. And the shocker for me is I finally went to one of the websites and went through the estimator, and the, quote, unquote, credit, meaning the part the government’s gonna pick up on your health care tab phases out at four times the poverty rate. So here’s an insidious example. If you’re 40, you got two in your household, you make $62,000, your monthly premium’s $491 that you have to pay out of pocket. If you go to $63,000, guess what? You get to pay the full $750.
RUSH: What is this $490 and $750? The minimum policy’s gonna be $5,500.
CALLER: Well, on a monthly basis.
RUSH: Oh, monthly basis, okay.
CALLER: The way the credit works is it’s on a sliding scale up to four times the poverty rate. So when you go one dollar over four times the poverty rate, you get zero federal subsidy.
RUSH: Well, I understand all that, one thing you’re right about, out of pocket, there’s zero expense. This is all done on your tax return. It’s taken away from your refund, the fine or the cost, that’s what the new agents are for. So you’re really not gonna get a bill for your Obamacare expenses. It’s gonna all be deducted, either withheld at your job, or your tax return, your refund, you could be in an owe situation. You might owe this money. But people aren’t, like any other tax, gonna have to write a check for it. So in that way it is kind of sneaky. You’re right, Debbie, you really are right.
Okay, folks, that’s it.