The Rush Limbaugh Show -- where healthy Americans ruin health care
By Simon Maloy

Rush got the final hour going with more sound bites of Obama's health care townhall meeting, airing audio of the president saying that 20 percent of the population account for 80 percent of health care costs, and if we can get somebody who is overweight to not become diabetic, that saves a bunch of money. Bingo, said Rush -- this is what Mona Charen wrote about today. If Obama gets national health care, then every behavior we engage in will be subject to regulation in order to keep down costs.

Then Rush said that this whole business about Obama keeping costs down is a lie: "[T]here's no other way to describe what the man wants to do than to call it socialized medicine, single-payer socialized medicine. And it's all about control. It's not about cost. This man's not worried about the cost of anything. He doesn't care what anything costs: a trip to New York for a date -- $12 trillion in debt over 10 years? He doesn't care what things cost. That's just to make you think he does. He doesn't care what health care costs."

Then Rush read from Charen's column, saying that government mandates on health insurance make it impossible for companies to offer cheap plans for the young and the healthy. When 20 percent of the population account for 80 percent of health care costs, said Rush, that means we should be offering policies that cover for catastrophic coverage to the young and the healthy, but they can't do that because of all these mandates. This whole system went south, said Rush, when the government got involved like 40 years ago.

Rush then set his sights on this morning's New York Times article on the American Medical Association's opposing a public option for health insurance. Rush zeroed in on this line: “If the doctors are too aggressive in fighting the public plan, they risk alienating Democrats whose support they need for legislation to increase their Medicare fees.” Rush said this means that if they anger the Democrats too much, then the Democrats will cut their pay. From there, he launched into a rant about how we shouldn't believe anything Obama has to say, because he's never run anything. All he knows, said Rush, is “agitating” people and “authoritarianism,” and he certainly doesn't know anything about health care. Rush said that he mentioned this at the beginning of the program -- we're going to be trained now to hate doctors, to hate the AMA. You just wait, said Rush. This administration fosters hate to get what they want, and you watch how they will attack the AMA.

After the break, Rush hit us with some shocking dishonesty. After claiming that the Medicare doctors are in the same position vis-à-vis the government as the bankers and the auto executives are, Rush said Obama had the “audacity” to say today: “I don't want government to run stuff.” Rush contrasted this with Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis' testimony in Washington today; Lewis said that the government threatened him that if Bank of America did not buy Merrill Lynch, then it had the authority to remove the management and the board. Rush said: “Obama doesn't want to control anything. This is Ken Lewis basically admitting that he, Bank of America, was pressured into buying Merrill Lynch. Obama doesn't want to run anything. He doesn't want to run anything.”

Here's the thing -- as CNN Money reported of Lewis' testimony today: “Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis stressed Thursday that pressure from the government played a key role in the company's decision to complete its purchase of Merrill Lynch last year” [emphasis added]. That would be “last year,” as in 2008, as in during the Bush administration, as in NOT under the Obama administration.

After another break, Rush asked if we remembered the story from April about nine people in Texas visiting the emergency room over 2,600 times last year. Rush said this is one of the unexplored aspects of the health care debate -- abuse of health services. We never tell people to stay away from the doctor if they're not sick. We never talk about those of our fellow citizens who are a bunch of spoiled brat, slothful hypochondriacs. According to Rush, just as we have trained a whole generation of people to not work, we've trained millions of people to think they're entitled to a doctor visit whenever they have a sniffle.

Then Rush took a call from a woman who was inspired by Rush, many years ago, to go to medical school and become a doctor, and as a doctor, she agrees with Rush that defensive medicine is a problem, and it can be solved by reforming the tort system. Rush wanted more specifics as to how he inspired her to become a doctor, but the call was dropped. So he moved on to his next caller, a woman from New Zealand who wanted to relate to El Rushbo some horror stories about her country's socialized health care system. Rush said that you hear horror stories out of the UK and Canada as well.

After one more break, Rush mocked Obama for saying that he's working on enough stuff, like Iran and North Korea, that he doesn't need to run health care. Rush read from a Los Angeles Times story which reported that "[k]ey world powers agreed Wednesday on a draft of a United Nations resolution that would sharply increase export and financial sanctions against North Korea as punishment for its recent nuclear weapons and missile tests." Rush said the sanctions would be useless, just as they were useless against Iran. Then Rush plugged the Heritage Foundation documentary, 33 Minutes, which, as Rush helpfully explained, is the length of time it will take for a missile to reach the U.S. from North Korea.

Then, after bragging about inspiring the doctor who had called in earlier, Rush had a question for us: “What is Obama inspiring? What is Obama inspiring? What is he encouraging people to do? Nothing -- is sit on their butts. He's encouraging people to give up, to sit on their butts and let the government redistribute wealth to them. He's not inspiring anybody. He is in fact -- his policies are depressing the whole spirit of achievement.” Then he was struck by inspiration -- Rush proposed that we wait to see how his promises on the economy shake out before allowing him to take over health care. That's what the GOP should be saying, said Rush, instead of fooling around on the margins like they're doing now. The reason Obama wants to hurry on this, said Rush, is because everything's falling apart and he's panicking.

Closing out the show, Rush had an astute observation for us: It's the people exercising who are hurting themselves and going to the hospital and these “exercise freaks” are driving up health care costs. It's the people who don't do anything and don't go to the hospital and don't know their doctors' names, Rush said, who cost nothing.

And that's it for today's show and today's Limbaugh Wire. Tomorrow's our favorite day of the week -- “Open Line Friday!” We hope you'll join us. Until then, feel free to familiarize yourselves with Media Matters all-knowing and ever-growing Limbaugh archives.

Greg Lewis and Lauryn Bruck contributed to this edition of the Limbaugh Wire.

Highlights from Hour 3

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: The bottom line: He's already set up a socialized medicine health care board in the porkulus bill modeled after the UK, which he admitted is a socialist system, socialized medicine. He's -- there's no other way to describe what the man wants to do than to call it socialized medicine, single-payer socialized medicine.

And it's all about control. It's not about cost. This man's not worried about the cost of anything. He doesn't care what anything costs: a trip to New York for a date -- $12 trillion in debt over 10 years? He doesn't care what things cost. That's just to make you think he does. He doesn't care what health care costs.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: What is Obama inspiring? What is Obama inspiring? What is he encouraging people to do? Nothing -- is sit on their butts. He's encouraging people to give up, to sit on their butts and let the government redistribute wealth to them. He's not inspiring anybody. He is in fact -- his policies are depressing the whole spirit of achievement.

America's Truth Rejector

Falsely suggested the Bank of America purchase of Merrill Lynch happened under Obama:

LIMBAUGH: These Medicare doctors are in the same spot as the bankers are. The Medicare doctors are in the same spot as the car company executives are. They're just like Ken Lewis. They're just like General Motors, Chrysler. They're controlled by government already and they're going to be controlled even more by government. And yet, President Obama, in Green Bay, has the audacity to say this.

OBAMA [audio clip]: Government can't do all of this. I'm the first one to acknowledge this. That's why I'm always puzzled when people, they go out there creating this boogeyman about how, you know, Obama wants government-run everything -- I don't want government to run stuff. Like I said, I've got enough stuff to do. I've got North Korea and I've got Iran, and I've got Afghanistan and Iraq -- and I don't know where people get this idea that I want to run stuff or I want government to run stuff. I would -- I think it'd be great if the health-care system was working perfectly and we didn't have to be involved at all. That would be wonderful. That's not how it's worked.

LIMBAUGH: Ken Lewis, Bank of America chief executive, testified today in Washington and said this.

LEWIS [audio clip]: It is true that we were told that if we went through or -- I can't exactly remember the exact words, so please give me license with word-for-word. But, basically, if we went through with calling the MAC that the government could or would remove management and the board -- and I've said in the past that it was -- the threat was not what gave me concern; what gave me concern that they would make that threat to a bank in good standing.

So it showed the seriousness with which they thought that we should not call a MAC -- a material adverse change -- and so, as a result of that, that was a factor in our decisions, because here your regulators and the federal government was saying, "We don't think, you know, calling the MAC is the best thing for you or the financial system.

LIMBAUGH: Obama doesn't want to control anything. This is Ken Lewis basically admitting that he, Bank of America, was pressured into buying Merrill Lynch. Obama doesn't want to run anything. He doesn't want to run anything. He's got -- he's not doing a thing about Iran or Afghanistan or Iraq. He is running General Motors. He is running Chrysler. He has appointing people. He's firing CEOs. What does he mean he doesn't want to run anything?