Wealthy conservative media figures deny crisis in health care
SUMMARY: Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sean Hannity -- who each reportedly make more than $20 million per year -- have downplayed the struggles of those lacking adequate health care, asserted that "there isn't a health care crisis," or characterized the United States as having "the best health care system in the world."
In recent months, conservative hosts Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sean Hannity -- who each reportedly make more than $20 million per year and presumably have good health care coverage -- have downplayed the struggles of those lacking adequate health care, asserted that "there isn't a health care crisis," or characterized the United States as having "the best health care system in the world."
Rush Limbaugh
Limbaugh, the highest paid talk radio host in the country, reportedly signed an eight-year, $400 million contract with Clear Channel Communications and its syndication subsidiary, Premiere Radio Networks, in July 2008. According to The New York Times, Limbaugh's "$50 million a year paycheck represents a raise of about $14.4 million a year over his current contract, which was paying him $285 million over eight years and was set to expire in 2009."
On the July 22 broadcast of his radio show, Limbaugh stated: "there isn't global warming and there isn't a health care crisis, but [President] Obama says he's gotta raise taxes and take over the private sector to fix both those things."
On the June 18 edition of his radio show, Limbaugh asserted:
There really isn't a crisis in health care in this country. The crisis in health care that -- if you wanna say, that does exist -- is the fear that a major illness or catastrophe could wipe you out, which isn't gonna change. In fact, the odds of you being wiped out by a catastrophe or accident once the government gets started running this stuff is greater than if the private sector -- but day-to-day, there's no health care crisis in this country. You can get it. So, it isn't about health care, per se. This is just about gaining control, taking money, and controlling people's lives, and wiping out Republicans -- a nice cherry on top.
On the June 16 edition of his show, Limbaugh stated: "The crisis in health care is like the crisis in everything else -- manufactured."
Glenn Beck
Beck reportedly makes $23 million per year. According to Forbes, Beck's revenue sources include "a TV show ($2 million), a radio show ($10 million), books ($5 million), speeches (half a million), appearances ($2.5 million) and a Web site ($3 million)." Indeed, in 2007, Beck reportedly signed a contract with Premiere Radio Networks "valued at $50 million over five years, through a combination of salary and profit-sharing from syndication," making Beck "the third highest-paid talk radio host." And according to The New York Observer, in 2008, Beck signed "a huge new two-book deal with Simon & Schuster imprint Threshold Editions" worth "approximately $3 million."
On the July 23 edition of his radio show, Beck questioned Obama's story about a woman whose insurance claim for her cancer treatment was denied, saying, "I just think we need a little more details other than, 'big insurance company bad, woman almost die.' " Then, after airing a clip of Obama mentioning a "middle class college graduate ... whose health insurance expired when he changed jobs and woke up from the emergency surgery that he required with $10,000 worth of debt," Beck criticized the man for failing to "go on COBRA," adding that "he was either stupid" or "didn't want to spend the money."
On the July 15 edition of his radio show, Beck mocked a caller's statement that "we've got people out there that are really sick that do need health care," and then stated sarcastically: "You're right, I read in the story all the time of the people who are dying in the streets because they can't go to a hospital and get health care. You are exactly right. We are letting people die left and right in this country."
Sean Hannity
Hannity reportedly makes around $20 million per year for his talk radio show alone. The Wall Street Journal reported in July 2008 regarding Hannity's most recent radio contract with ABC Networks and Premiere Radio Networks: "[A] person familiar with the matter says Mr. Hannity was offered in the region of $100 million over five years." Moreover, the New York Daily News reported in October 2008 that Hannity had signed a "new multiyear, multimillion-dollar contract" to continue his Fox News program through 2012.
On the March 10 edition of his radio show, after Fox News contributor Bob Beckel said that one problem with the health care system is that in the past "businesses insured their employees, and very few of them are doing it anymore," Hannity responded that "that's not true, Bob." A couple of minutes later, Hannity stated to Beckel, "I just don't understand the logic, why you believe that the government can do what the free market had successfully accomplished, which was a health care system that was the envy of the world." Beckel responded, in part, that "the free market system has not worked that way if 46 million are not insured and cannot get medical coverage."
On the July 16 edition of Fox News' The Live Desk, Hannity similarly referred to the current U.S. system as "the best health care system in the world."
From the July 22 broadcast of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show:
LIMBAUGH : The National Weather Service temperature station showed 58 degrees at 5:30 a.m. yesterday. Wiped out the previous low of 60 degrees, set in 1877. In Al Gore's -- well, it's where Al Gore lives -- Gore's town breaks cold record. There isn't global warming and there isn't a health care crisis, but Obama says he's gotta raise taxes and take over the private sector to fix both these things.
From the June 18 edition of The Rush Limbaugh Show:
LIMBAUGH: The one thing you're really right about is, it isn't about health care. That's just -- that's just the diving board, if you will, the springboard to get into your heart. It's not about health care at all; it's about control. It's about grabbing two and a half trillion dollars from the private economy and bringing it into government Obama control. It's -- cause -- somebody called here the other day and made a good point. There really isn't a crisis in health care in this country. The crisis in health care that -- if you wanna say, that does exist -- is the fear that a major illness or catastrophe could wipe you out, which isn't gonna change. In fact, the odds of you being wiped out by a catastrophe or accident once the government gets started running this stuff is greater than if the private sector -- but day-to-day, there's no health care crisis in this country. You can get it. So, it isn't about health care, per se. This is just about gaining control, taking money, and controlling people's lives, and wiping out Republicans -- a nice cherry on top.
From the June 16 edition of The Rush Limbaugh Show:
LIMBAUGH: The crisis in health care is like the crisis in everything else -- manufactured.
[...]
LIMBAUGH: There is no crisis. The crisis in health care's in the U.K. The crisis in health care is in Canada. The crisis in health care is in Cuba. The crisis in health care is in the -- with the ChiComs. The crisis in health care is with -- a lot of other places. The crisis in health care here has been manufactured.
I've got mine, screw the rest of you!
And to contrast, for humor's sake, here's [what should be] the Democrat's platform in four:
Screw these rich bastards!
That's simply wrong. I can afford it. For instance, when I had COBRA a few years back, I could afford the $350 a month it cost me for my policy. But once my COBRA ran out, nobody would cover me.
Pre-existing condition.
So Limbaugh is -- surprise! -- wrong again.
The man isn't crazy. A sociopath perhaps, but not crazy.
...so if my late night/early morning math is correct, that's about 91Mil for the 3 for the year. Average out to about 30Mil per guy... say, 260 days on the air per year... 3 hours on the air in each of those days... Averages just under $40K per hour of air time per day. Nice!
It is in "the self-interest" of all in the upper echelons of our society, including the Hannities, Limbaughs and Becks, to think seriously about how they, their families and their friends "will" be affected by other Americans' lack of affordable, adequate medical care.
The physical well-being of every American - including the physical well-being of congressmen, senators, presidents, governors, lobbyists, bankers, titans of industry, multi-millionaires, and talk-show hosts, and the friends and family members of each - daily depends upon the health of several of the following, and on how conscientiously they do their jobs: maids; people who clean restrooms; servers, dishwashers, and cooks in fast-food restaurants and other restaurants; childcare workers; hospital employees; nursing home employees; all caregivers; all grocery store employees; people who pick fruits and vegetables; people who put fruits and vegetables on store shelves; people who slaughter chickens, turkeys, hogs, cattle, sheep, and goats and people who process the meat for market; people who process fish for market; people who clean slaughterhouses; people who work in canning and bottling factories, including all who clean the factories; food inspectors; and countless more.
The physical well-being of every American depends upon these who the upper crust takes for granted. The same bell which tolls for these workers tolls for our families, our friends, and us. And B.L.H. propaganda cannot change that fact.
If you wish to contain costs, follow the President's lead, and begin canceling major pork barrel defense contracts like the F-22.
And, let me ask you this: Bush spent over a trillion dollars in Iraq and got us what, exactly? No WMDs, no al Qaeda links, no involvement in 9-11 in Iraq, and the oil didn't pay for it. We did. The only thing we have to show for that money he wasted is an emboldened Iran, and a reduced foreign opinion of our nation.
Social Security actually -makes- money. President Reagan borrowed billions upon billions from the program to make his budget look better. If the government would quit borrowing from it, it would be in the black every year.
So many excuses to do nothing, but not a single sound argument against doing something.
Randy
And yeah, our healthcare system's just terrific, if ranked behind Costa Rica, Singapore, and Colombia by the WHO. Yep, and I never have to wait in a doctor's office now! No sir! Plus, I'd rather pay huge medical bills and fight with insurance companies than, you know, have to wait slightly longer for a procedure like in, say, Canada.
As for class warfare, do you mean the one the rich have been waging on our country since the Reagan revolution, if not before? It was rich guys who started the Iraq War, for example. How many affluent soldiers are there? I say there's not enough class envy in this country.
I do believe your son qualifies for the SCHIP program or Medicaid. I think you should look into this. This was created exactly for people such as yourself. It is true that people do come here from all over the world for medical treatment. I don't know of many people who leave this country to be treated elsewhere. I could be wrong because so many posters here say we have a terrible system and care is better in many other countries. I have not seen proof of this and I've been to ten countries.
Your whole argument is a strawman as it does not address the area where the biggest problem is.
If you're active duty, what kind of healthcare do you think you have? My guess would be Tri-Care, which is a government sponsored/run program.
Many people fly to other countries for expensive procedures that their insurance provider wouldn't cover. 60 Minutes did an expose on it several months ago.
Wealthy talk show hosts make up about what, .000000001% of those opposed for principled reasons.
Yes, but it is inarguable that these pundits have many, many more times the influence of the regular people with principled reasons one way or the other.
Many people, with or without a lot of money, are opposed to this plan for many reasons - and it's not because they don't care about those who can't afford the health care they can. What is the point of putting these people's yearly salaries up there? It's ridiculous.
I am not defending Hannity or Limbaugh on this issue, because they have no principled opposition to much of anything, but to put their income up there just as red meat is pointless.
Being wealthy does have some bearing on this debate. The wealthy have little if anything to personally gain from universal or even expanded health insurance. The wealthy can already afford the best care. The wealthy are not likely to be dropped from health insurance and even if they are, they are not likely to be ruined by the debt that regular folks have been through.
However they obviously do have much to lose if it is passed, because they stand to be the ones paying the difference according to several proposals.
Considering these very conservatives frequently argue (coincidentally self-servingly) that people should vote for tax cutting politicians because the government does not deserve our money, how can we not think they feel the same way with regards to taxes to pay for health insurance reforms targeted specifically at them - the wealthy?
This is just part of the debate. Calling it "class warfare" seems just a code word conservatives use cowardly to avoid the relevant discussion.
Do you think Hannity worries about going bankrupt because his medical bills are out of control or he may be dropped? Regular folks worry about that every day. Can you see that his opposition to a program that ultimately and directly means higher taxes for him may be at least somewhat self-interested and self-serving? If yes, then do you think that his opposition is merely coincidental to his argument or motivation? If no, then why?
True, perhaps, if you don't pay attention.
There's lots of reasons why costs will come down:
If people have insurance, they'll visit their doctor when problems are small, instead of waiting for the small problem to become an emergency, sending them to the ER for significantly more costly treatment
Insurance requirements will increase the pool of the insured. This alone reduces everyone's premiums. But it also creates a larger pool over which to distribute the cost of uninsured treatments. Sick people aren't turned away from hospitals if they don't have insurance, and if they can't pay, we all pay in the form of higher bills. By distributing these costs over a larger number of people, the cost per person comes down. (And, again, fewer people will be uninsured to begin with.)
The CBO is presenting the cost of the plan. But who is comparing the cost of that plan to what we're paying now? We pay more for our health system than just about anyone in the world. And those uninsured people aren't going untreated. What are the costs of all those uninsured people? What's the cost of all those bankruptcies, and the damage to our economy? What's the cost of people staying home from work because they get sick more often because they aren't seeing doctors more regularly?
Your position is a bunch of uninformed talking points. Worse, it's short-sighted. You think you're advocating for lower costs when in reality you're efforts go toward maintaining a broken, inefficient, far-too-expensive system. You must own insurance company stock.
Just saying!
Answer to my question: The canadian system is bad because they make our system look bad.
You will get no argument from me that we do not have great doctors and great professionals and great treatment. The problem I have is with the delivery. Health insurance runs at cross purposes to getting sick people access to the private healthcare treatment they need.
In essence, all of these pundits are using a strawman argument by suggesting the entire system is the problem.
40 million to the roles of the insured
The US has the highest health care costs in the world,and rank behind Morrocco in 37 place in life expectancy.The fact that Limbaugh,Hannity,Beck and you forgot O'Reilly are against helping the less fortunate is like saying Himmler disliked Jews.
These odious men placed no moral questioning of their party'sexual indescretions recently,instead calling universal health care socialism,to drum up fear amungst the less educated.They do not care about anything but their ideology of hate and fear.
Greedy and selfish is the only way to describe these right wing crackpots.
Politics is about tricking people into thinking you're doing something good, when their real motives are to get power to do something else. Police tell you they need strong drunk driving rules to "save lives", when what they really want is a reason to hire more cops, and to pull people over and make more arrests and generate more revenue.
If this was just about affordable healthcare, there are lots of ways to do it. Republicans have proposed many reforms during the Bush years; all blocked. Why? Because progressives don't want "affordable health care". They want control over people's lives. Any solution that doesn't include the government is unacceptable, because private industry doesn't have the goal of controlling the population.
I struggle every day to pay my bills and have bill collectors calling me all the time and I DO NOT WANT Obama's Health Care Plan. By the way, I watch both CNN and Fox News Network. I haven't yet seen CNN talk in detail about what actually is in Obama's Health Care Bill like Fox has. For God's sake, Even Obama won't go into details! What does Obama care, he's guaranteed great health insurance and care for life as are the people who will be voting on this Health Care Plan. They can't be forced to take this plan like we'll be (they voted against that). They have nothing at stake.
Wake up America Obama is working to get your country back from the people like Murdoch, Beck. O.Reilly, Limbaugh and Hannity.
These men do not care about you.