RUSH: From the Daily Caller. They say that they have learned the Republicans’ new plan to repeal and replace Obamacare. This, by the way, is from the Republican leadership. This is not Mike Lee and Ted Cruz. This is the leadership. These are the people that we have thought did not want to do anything to oppose Obama. We’ve been thinking that the leadership’s problem was with Cruz and Mike Lee over in the Senate and whatever friends they have in the House.
It turns out that the Republicans have an alternative to Obamacare. “The 200-page budget-neutral bill would provide $20,000 in tax deductions to families and a $7,500 deduction to individuals, so they can buy insurance from vendors in any state.” It’s sort of like medical savings accounts. “It also would allow Americans to keep the money they save by picking lower-cost providers.” Now, they’d better try to advertise this.
Now, you and I are saying, “Why don’t they just vote to defund it? Why do they always have to come up with an alternative? Why can’t they just say ‘no’?” The theory in this case is, “Well, they did say ‘no’ but it still passed and has become law,” and, folks, the Republican leadership, I know, they don’t want to defund it or delay it. There’s two mechanisms. One is the fight over the continuing resolution. The other opportunity is the fight over the debt limit.
Those are two separate things, and the Republican leadership — in conservative intelligentsia, in the elite and scholarly sectors of conservatism, some of the think tanks, some of the, quote/unquote “real brains,” have decided that it would make more sense to make the stand in the fight over raising the debt limit instead of the continuing resolution, which is the end of this month, on the theory that most people don’t have any idea what a continuing resolution is.
But they do know what raising the debt limit is. But the debt is one of the primary reasons the Tea Party came into existence. So there two competing views here on where best to try to actually defund or delay Obamacare, and it looks like, if I’ve got this right (and I may have these things reversed, and if I do, I will fix it) the thing that they’re thinking of doing is making the move on defunding or delaying Obamacare during the debt limit fight, ’cause everybody understands that, rather than the continuing resolution, which nobody knows what it is.
I think I’ve got that delineation right. I don’t know how fervently committed to it they are. This is not the House leadership. This is the Republican/conservative intelligentsia, which is trying to influence the House leadership on this. “In an effort to contend with one of the more popular aspects of Obamacare, the Republican bill — which was drafted by a committee subgroup headed by Rep. Phil Roe, a doctor — would also create a 10-year, $25 billion fund to lower costs for Americans afflicted with pre-existing conditions such as cancer.”
So what this means is that there certain aspects of Obamacare the Republicans don’t want to defund. There are certain aspects of Obamacare they don’t want to end, they don’t want to repeal, and one of them is insurance for preexisting conditions. Those are called high-risk pools, in the language of the bill, and it’s been remarkable how few people have signed up for high-risk pool insurance. You know, this is one of those things everybody believed, and the Republicans still believe it.
Everybody believed that one of the most attractive aspects of Obamacare was insurance for preexisting conditions, and why did they think that? ‘Cause the media made a big hullabaloo out of it all the time, and the media created this impression that the only thing Americans care about is being able to get insurance for a preexisting condition, because then the theory further goes that everybody has one, and the insurance companies are really unfair ’cause they deny them.
We’re not even talking about insurance. If you can go get homeowners fire insurance after your house catches fire, we’re not talking insurance; we’re talking welfare. Anyway, the Republicans don’t want to do anything about that. They don’t want to repeal preexisting coverage. They want their own version of it. They want credit for that feature of Obamacare hanging on.
“Additionally, [the Republican bill] would let people carry their insurance with them from job to job,” not lose it if they lost the job or if they quit the job, “and cut wasteful legal costs by reforming medical lawsuits,” with tort reform. We’ve heard all of this before. There’s nothing new here, philosophically. It’s been assembled here as a Republican alternative to Obamacare. It’s actually an alternative to defunding it.
The Republican proposal “transfers authority from ObamacareÂ’s regulators to citizens because,” it says here, “‘we think people are smart enough and will find the best plan for their family;'” we don’t have to have the government in charge of that. “Via a reformed national health insurance market, Americans will be able to buy many of the provisions in Obamacare that are lauded by the White House, such as coverage for adult children up to age 26, he said.”
So, you see, in crafting an alternative, we find that there are two or three things about Obamacare the Republicans like: preexisting conditions, insurance for that, and being able to keep your kid on your policy until your kid is 26. So it seems here that it is Republicans that have an alternative. It is not a plan to repeal it. It is a plan to replace it. Now, I’m going to make a wild guess that most of you don’t want any of this replace business. What you want is, “Let’s repeal this and then start from scratch.” That’s just a wild guess on my part. I could be wrong about it.
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RUSH: Daniel in San Antonio. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Texas size dittos from a Millennial.
RUSH: Thank you very much, sir. I appreciate that.
CALLER: So just yesterday, actually, my wife went to a hospital, and the doctor asked her those questions that you did with Bill Clinton.
RUSH: The sex questions?
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: Sex-life questions?
CALLER: Yeah. I didn’t know that was part of a Obamacare because while my wife told me yesterday she got all those questions, she thought it was kind of funny, and I thought it was odd — and then I find out part of the Obamacare crap, now I’m just pissed off.
RUSH: Well, congratulations. You should be.
CALLER: Yeah. I thought it was because my wife is expecting. She found out like a month ago that she’s gonna… She’s pregnant.
RUSH: So how did she answer the multiple sex partners question?
CALLER: She laughed and is like, uh, definitely not.
RUSH: I just thought I’d ask.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: (laughing)
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: You’re having a party there. I can tell every time you say something you’re leaning over to your buds and you’re laughing. You’re having a good time out there.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: You don’t sound old enough to be married. Now, that’s just me and hearing voices on the phone. You don’t sound old enough to be married.
CALLER: I’m 26.
RUSH: Twenty-six. Well, you’re not, but you are anyway. See, they’re laughing again. You know, people are huddled around the phone there, and they’re always having the best time. You know what they did. “Let’s call Rush and let’s see what we can make him believe.” They’re out there just having the grandest time. Anyway, it’s great to hear from you, Daniel. I’m glad to know that you got ticked off about it. There’s even more coming that you don’t know about it that’s gonna enrage you if that made you mad.
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RUSH: This is Todd in Hope, Arkansas, Clinton country. Hello, Todd. Great to have you here, sir.
CALLER: Rush, thank you for taking my call. I’ve been listening for many years and tried to call in, and this is my first time getting through. Thank you so much.
RUSH: You bet, sir.
CALLER: It seems like Obamacare will make it illegal for me to pay cash to my medical providers like I am now, and it also seems like any time the government makes anything illegal, there is a group of people who will step in to facilitate that whatever’s been made illegal continuing.
RUSH: Wait, wait, wait, wait. Who would they be?
CALLER: Oh, I don’t know. Somebody from northern New Jersey or Las Vegas or, you know.
RUSH: You’re talking about?
CALLER: Organized crime.
RUSH: Organized crime. Let me tell you something. From my standpoint, organized crime is already running it.
CALLER: (laughing) Good point. Do you think they’ll take it more private though and be a growth opportunity for illegal medical care?
RUSH: Well, any time you go all cash, yeah, you have a point. You have a point. You really do. Any time you go all cash, you also become a target — hee-hee-hee — of the Regime. Yeah, if you get a death panel verdict that you don’t like, and you want to live, and you’ve got the money, can you imagine making the Regime mad at you? “You’re supposed to be dead, damn it, and we’re gonna see to it that you die! We can’t have our death panels being undermined like this.”
Anyway, Todd, it’s a good point. It’s a good point, because there are going to be people that are gonna try to beat this. There always are. We’re made up of a nation of creative entrepreneurs. People are just not gonna be controlled. This thing is gonna be such a mess. I’m not sure Obamacare outlaws cash payments yet ’cause they’re too dumb to figure out that’s where it’s gonna go, but once they figure it out then, they’re gonna make their move.