RUSH: Moving on to the Obamacare Stack, there are a lot of reports today, expressions of anger, humiliation, disappointment, over the debacle that continues to be the Obamacare website. More glitches. Now you’ve got people saying, “You know what, this thing can’t be fixed. It’s gonna have to torn down and rebuilt from scratch.” And, by the way, remember the picture of the young woman that’s been the iconic figure at HealthCare.gov? She’s gone now. They’ve replaced her with two or three icons or graphics. That woman was probably the Julia of the famous Obamacare commercial.
But, anyway, I’ll give you an example. There’s a piece here by our old buddy Ron Fournier, who used to work at the AP, bureau chief and then White House correspondent, and now he’s at the National Journal. And his piece is called, “Obama Takes Friendly Fire.” I’m just gonna read verbatim the way his piece begins. “Incoming from Democrats: ‘Dem Party is F****d.’ That was the subject line of an email sent to me Sunday by a senior Democratic consultant with strong ties to the White House and Capitol Hill. The body of the email contained a link to this Los Angeles Times story about Obamacare ‘sticker shock:'” And I have that LA Times story. I’ll get to that here in just a second. Let me finish with Ron Fournier’s piece.
In the LA Times story, it says, “These middle-class consumers are staring at hefty increases on their insurance bills as the overhaul remakes the healthcare market. Their rates are rising in large part to help offset the higher costs of covering sicker, poorer people who have been shut out of the system for years. … Although recent criticism of the healthcare law has focused on website glitches and early enrollment snags, experts say sharp price increases for individual policies have the greatest potential to erode public support for President Obama’s signature legislation.”
Bingo! It isn’t just that the HealthCare.gov website’s a mess; it’s that people who are figuring it out and getting through are finding out, and we’ve had the stories left and right, we got a Stack of ’em again today, about what people are discovering is gonna happen to their premiums. In fact, I mentioned last week that all of these glitches that are taking place and preventing people from signing in and logging on are actually maybe a blessing in disguise for the regime, because these people are not learning, the people that are having trouble getting through, they’re not learning have they’re gonna get shafted.
So, anyway, Ron Fournier writes this piece, and he talks about an e-mail he got from a senior Democrat consultant who opened his e-mail by saying, “We’re screwed. Democrat Party screwed.” That was the subject line. And he’s bouncing off this LA Times piece. In the story, the reporter “quoted a letter sent to a California insurance company executive. ‘I was all for Obamacare,’ wrote a young woman complaining about a 50 percent rate hike related to the health care law, ‘until I found out I was paying for it.'”
This story in the LA Times actually has that quote in it. A woman, young woman, big Obama voter, big Obama supporter, all-in for Obamacare, and then she says, “I was all for Obamacare until I found out I was paying for it.”
“Also of interest to the Democratic consultant: A Josh Barro column on Obama’s promise that ‘if you like your health plan, you can keep your health plan.’ It was never a reasonable pledge, Barro argues, and it’s being proven false. He called this ‘a good thing’ because ‘a lot of existing health plans were bad.’ Reforming the nation’s health care system ‘was necessarily going to have to change a lot of people’s health plans,’ Barro wrote.”
Well, what good does that do people? The president of the United States promised them over and over again that they get to keep their plan if they liked it and they get to keep their doctor, and they can’t. And they’re all learning this. He promised them over and over again their premiums are coming down $2,500, and they’re not. And then the Democrat that wrote Ron Fournier this note that leads off with, “Democrat Party screwed,” said, “We will own this problem forever.”
“The Democratic consultant said none of this is news to him,” he knew all about what Obamacare was gonna do, “but he wonders why,” now listen to this. I’m gonna go nuts here. Listen to this. This is not an inside-the-Beltway conservative writing here. This is a senior Democrat consultant who wrote an e-mail to Ron Fournier. I’ll just read to you what Fournier wrote. “The Democratic consultant said none of this is news to him, but he wonders why Obama wasn’t honest with Americans.” Good grief, folks!
So now a ranking Democrat consultant is rubbing his hands together, he’s really worried. He thinks the Democrat Party is screwed, that they’re gonna own this problem forever, that it can’t be fixed, and he wonders why Obama wasn’t honest with Americans. The task is larger than I thought, folks. The level, the amount, the shocking tonnage of sheer ignorance at what we think are the highest levels of government and politics is almost irreconcilable to me. This does not compute. How in the world a Democrat consultant wonders why Obama wasn’t honest with people. Can I answer it for you?
Had he been honest with people about anything, nothing would have passed. Had he been honest about his stimulus, it wouldn’t have happened. Had he been honest about what he intended for the job, the economy, he wouldn’t have been elected. Had he been honest about what he intended in foreign policy, he wouldn’t have been elected. Had he been honest about what’s gonna happen to people’s health care, he would not have been elected. What do you mean, you don’t know why he lied to people?
Is it an extreme statement to say the Democrat Party has to lie in campaigns? The Democrat Party cannot be honest about its intentions. That’s why we don’t have a federal budget for four years, because the Democrat Party does not want to spell out their policy objectives. They don’t want to spell out what they intend to do with tax increases, the size of government, health care, you name it. That’s why we don’t have a budget, pure and simple. A Democrat consultant wonders why Obama wasn’t honest with Americans, and people on our side say it took ’em five weeks after the immaculation to figure out who they’re dealing with here? Man, are we screwed. There’s no other way to put it.
Folks, let me tell you: The low-information voters may know more about what’s going on than the intelligentsia does. Low-information voters may have a bigger handle on their future than people advising them do. I may be making fun of the wrong people here when we talk about the low-information voters! A Democrat consultant wonders why Obama wasn’t honest with Americans? He went on to predict surprises and outrage over higher costs and lesser coverage?
Really?
That’s a bold prediction!
We will own this problem forever? You guys knew what you were doing when you did it. Are you trying to tell me that when you Democrats gathered to pas this thing — and got Steny Hoyer and Bart Stupak and Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi herding everybody in — you didn’t know what you were doing? Are you Democrats telling me you had no idea what this really was? They didn’t read the bill! Let’s be honest. Pelosi said, “We’re gonna have to pass it to find out what’s in it.”
This is why, folks, I say Obama doesn’t care about any of this. He didn’t care what’s in it because all he wanted was to get it passed. He doesn’t care. But these people, they’re admitting they didn’t know what this was, or they want us to believe that. I think everybody is in a CYA. This is so bad, it is such a disaster, that everybody’s laying down markers covering their rear end. That’s what this consultant’s doing.
There’s no way these people didn’t know what this bill was. There’s no way. They intended it! For crying out loud, they intended the government to grow. They intended for health care to become the mechanism for that. They intended all this, and now they’re running around saying, “Oh, my God, we didn’t know any of this!” Bull, they didn’t know any of this. But here’s the thing about this piece by Mr. Fournier, just so you have this in the proper context.
They’re not worried about what this means to the American people. They’re worried about what it means to the Democrat Party now. That’s why there are all these media reports now expressing anger or humiliation or disappointment. They’re worried. Like this consultant wrote to Fournier, “Oh, my God, we’re screwed! We’re gonna own this forever.” That’s right, because not one Republican voted for this. But they’re worried not about the effect on you.
They’re not worried that your family budget’s gonna be torn up to handle this. They’re not worried about any of the impact on you here. They’re worried about the impact on them. They’re worried about the impact on Obama. They’re worried about the impact on the Democrats. They’re worried about the impact on the leftist agenda. That’s what they’re worried about and that’s why they’re writing this stuff today.
They’re letting Obama know how deeply they have been hurt, they’re letting Obama know how deeply they think they’ve been misled, and they’re all in giant CYA mode today. Everybody is. Everybody! They say, “Well, I didn’t know who Obama was for a little while.” Now this Democrat consultants says, “Why would Obama lie to people?” He wonders why Obama wasn’t honest. “Why weren’t you honest with the American people?”
You guys, as consultants, run ads…
Folks, I am so fit to be tied, I can’t…
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: This LA Times story is not the only story of its kind today. There’s also one in the Chicago Tribune. In fact, let me just give you the headline. This is Daily Caller. “Here’s How Obamacare Might Make Life Hell for College Professors.” So I have to get the details as the program unfolds, but here are just the headlines. “Here’s How Obamacare Might Make Life Hell for College Professors.”
Apparently they have no idea what’s coming because they’re idiots, too. Do you realize we’re being led and governed by genuinely stupid people, folks? If everything we’re being asked to believe today is really true, then we’re being governed by sheer idiocy no matter where we turn. NBC’s Lexington, Kentucky, affiliate: “The Real Cost to Kentuckians for the Affordable Care Act.” From the Wall Street Journal: “How Retirees Will Suffer Under Obamacare.”
From the Chicago Sun-Times: “Obamacare Jacks Up Her Insurance — Sue Klinkhamer has a problem. It’s called Obamacare. And the irony of her situation is not lost on her. In a recent email addressed to her former boss, Illinois Congressman Bill Foster, and other Democratic colleagues, she wrote: ‘I spent two years defending Obamacare. I had constituents scream at me, spit at me and call me names that I can’t put in print.
“The congressman was not re-elected in 2010 mainly because of the anti-Obamacare anger. When the congressman was not re-elected, I also (along with the rest of our staff) lost my job. I was upset that because of the health care issue, I didn’t have a job anymore but still defended Obamacare because it would make health care available to everyone at, what I assumed, would be an affordable price. I have now learned that I was wrong. Very wrong.'” She’s 60.
Yeah, like, OMG! So she’s a congressional staffer. She’s a staffer, and just three years ago, her premium was $225 with a $2,500 deductible. Today she’s at $322 and $6,500, and she’s like everybody: She believed Obama. She’s a loyal Democrat. She ran around and stumped for it. She believed her Congressman. It was gonna get cheaper, and everybody was gonna be covered. But now, wherever you turn today, this Obamacare is bad. That’s just four stories from a burgeoning Obamacare Stack.
(interruption)
You’re damn right I’m mad!
For five years we have been telling people the truth about it on this show and elsewhere. For five years! You know what? The problem is, these people own it. I have no sympathy for ’em, but the fact of the matter is they have doomed this country with their stupidity, with their blind loyalty and their stupid hatred of conservatives drummed up by a media that knows what it’s doing. These people — via their stupidity and their partisanship and their ignorance and whatever else — have supported something that is an albatross, at best.
They had every opportunity to learn the truth about this.
They had every chance to believe the truth.
And because of their own closed-minded bigotry, they chose to reject the truth when they heard it because they didn’t think the people telling them the truth were good people. They thought the people telling them the truth were racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe conservative extremists. So they weren’t gonna believe the truth. They believed the people lying to them, and they believed it all the way up until the moment of truth when they found out they’d been lied to. And even with all that, the concern now is not these people and the costs that they’re going to experience.
Oh, no!
The concern in the media is, “How will this affect Obama and the Democrat Party, and what can we do to mitigate that?”
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Look, I’m gonna get to the phones here in a minute. I’m gonna have to, folks, because I’m so spitting mad, I cannot tell you. I got a follow-up note to my friend who told me what I’m not getting, told me how best to understand the inside the Beltway sophisticates, people that don’t really have any principle or anything. And he’s got a point here. He said, “Rush, I’m surprised. All I’m saying is it shouldn’t be a surprise to you. Many times when the 2012 election looked close, I heard and I’m sure you heard the following in an intentionally sophisticated tone from business savvy but politically naive people. Quote, ‘Obama’s big mistake was going to the health care bill. He should have focused on economic growth.'” And, you know, folks, I have to admit that this guy has a point.
I’ll never forget something. I was watching a cable news show, and it was somebody like Fareed Zakaria: GPS, using his frequent location data on his show, some liberal commentator, a Wall Street type guest, and it was about the 2012 election and they said, “Clearly Obama is interested in reducing the debt as part of his campaign.” I said, “Whoa, what am I watching?” My friend here is right. The people I’m talking about were ranking members of the DC establishment, ranking network commentator, network guest. I forget the names, I don’t really know who, but take your pick. You know, one was a Wall Street Journal reporter and the other was some typical business network guest or whatever.
And my mouth is open in incredulity. Do you really think that Obama is going to have to and wants to do something about the debt? Have you not lived through these four years of $5 trillion of new debt practically written single-handedly by the guy? And so the point is you have all of these moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans, inside the Beltway, the New York-Washington-Boston corridor, a lot of them are on Wall Street, a lot of them are in Hollywood, a lot of them everywhere, and they voted for Obama, and they just assume that every politician wants to lower the debt, that every politician wants to grow the economy to facilitate reelection. Those are just the standard, ordinary operating procedure assumptions. And they all make them, that a good economy is a top priority.
So they debate Obama’s policies within that framework, missing totally what he’s really doing, which is transforming, rearranging, reordering the economy by shrinking it. These people are considered the wizards of smart, the Warren Buffetts and Bill Gates of the world, and they are clueless. They do not see what’s right in front of their noses. My friend here is right. They do live on these assumptions, that every politician has certain things about ’em that are identical, and one is when it’s reelection time they want a growing economy and reduce the debt, and so they just plug that in when talking about Obama and say, “This what he’s gonna have to do, what he wants to do, debt reduction policies.”
Meanwhile, we watch this, and it’s no wonder we tune ’em out, they’re clueless. They don’t know what they’re talking about. These are the same people that didn’t have the slightest clue, apparently, what Obamacare was all about and why Obama really wants it? And now they’ve looked at it from the standard prism of Washington legislation, that every president wants to do something that’s gonna help, in this case, health care. They can’t conceive a politician writing, sponsoring legislation that will hurt something. So they don’t even consider it.
They look at it within the framework of it’s helping, and then when it doesn’t work, like this rollout is showing it’s an absolute disaster, then they start wringing their hands, “Well, why did Obama lie?” Which is all fine and dandy, but it wouldn’t insult me as much if I wasn’t told that these are the smart people and we’re the rubes and the idiots. They’re the ruling classes. We’re the country class. We don’t know what we’re talking about when in fact we’re being governed and led by absolute buffoons. Forget the ideological components. Nancy Pelosi’s a buffoon. So is Harry Reid. They’re also radical liberal buffoons, but they’re buffoons, morons! And, of course, the inside-the-Beltway culture, the media, treats them not as buffoons but as the architects and the wizards of smart. And we are the rubes.
Then when it all goes wrong, the only area of concern they have, “Oh, my God, how is this gonna affect us?” And not them personally, but them politically. “How’s this gonna affect our hold on power? How’s this gonna affect our ability to get power?” They’re not asking, “My gosh, how are we gonna afford health care?” You know why? Because they got their carve-out! They got their subsidies! Pardon me for yelling, I’m sorry, I really gotta go to the phones or I’m gonna go nuts here because I am so ticked off, I can’t tell you. This woman in the Chicago Sun Times story, this Ms. Klinkhamer, her plan was $225 a month with a $1,500 deductible. Now it’s $345 month and a $6,500 deductible, and she can’t afford it.
She says that to get the same kind of plan that she had before Obamacare was enacted, she would have to pay $647 a month. But members of Congress don’t because they got their 70% subsidy. Remember? They said they couldn’t afford it. The staff and members of Congress, who make 174 grand, they couldn’t afford it. They begged Obama for a carve-out, and they got their carve-out. If it weren’t for the congressional 70% subsidy, we would be bombarded with stories like this from Capitol Hill, from members of the staff and elected officials who would also be complaining about these massive Obamacare costs, but they got their subsidies.
You know, I don’t know what I’ve been doing, I’ve probably been yelling and that’s never good, but I tell you what, I can’t tell you how mad I am. I mean, look, stupidity offends me anyway. Abject, utter ignorance and stupidity when there’s no reason for it, offend me. When the truth has been out there simply by turning on the radio or reading one Web page now and then, the truth has been easy to find. And when these dummkopfs come along and reject it because of their own closed-minded political bigotry, I’m sorry, I have no sympathy for ’em, but I’ve got a lot of anger ’cause they’ve all joined together in their blessed ignorance and screwed all of us. And now they have the temerity to start whining and crying about, “I didn’t know.” Your problem. You were told. You just chose not to listen to it. Stupid, idiot, glittering jewel of colossal ignorance.
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