This hour of the Limbaugh Wire brought to you by doctors in indentured servitude
By Greg Lewis

The final hour of Limbaugh began with Rush noting that Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC introduced Obama's town hall today as Obama appearing before a “willing audience.” Rush said that this is an interesting way to describe an audience that has been “picked, chosen, and screened.”

Rush went on to play various sound bites from Obama's speech at the event, generally picking on Obama's remarks that his plan would judge the quality, not quantity, of doctors' work. Then Rush partook in some more fearmongering on health care rationing: “You are gonna be denied coverage if you aren't trying to help do the right thing for yourself. You are not gonna be treated. You're gonna be deemed too expensive. The investment in you is not gonna be worth it.” Rush, who said he understands Obama better than anyone else, stated that he is still “stunned” by this bill, adding that "[t]here ought not be one doctor in this country supporting this. There ought not be one nurse because they're going to be culpable, too, you know. They're in the game..."

Then Rush singled out Obama's comments from his health care “infomercial” on ABC last June. Obama was asked by an audience member if there would be a “medical cutoff” for prolonging the life of the elderly, bringing up her 105-year-old mother as an example, saying she had received a pacemaker a few years ago. Rush said he could understand this question being asked of Fidel Castro or Hugo Chavez, or some serf pleading to let his mother live. Then he proceeded to read Obama's answer, but conveniently left off the portion in bold:

OBAMA: [W]hat we can do is make sure that at least some of the waste that exists in the system that's not making anybody's mom better, that is loading up on additional tests or additional drugs that the evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve care, that at least we can let doctors know and your mom know that, you know what? Maybe this isn't going to help. Maybe you're better off not having the surgery but taking the painkiller.

And those kinds of decisions between doctors and patients, and making sure that our incentives are not preventing those good decision, and that -- that doctors and hospitals all are aligned for patient care, that's something we can achieve.

We here at the Limbaugh Wire fail to see the controversy in Obama's remarks, even though Rush has been striving to make it sound objectionable now for weeks. Anyway, Rush was shocked, shocked, that this happened in the United States of America. He said this is the kind of fearful questions people who live in “banana republics” ask.

Rush then warned doctors that if this passes, they “are going to become indentured federal servants.” He elaborated on this idea, even going as far as to introduce a conspiracy theory based on whether doctors donate to Democrats:

LIMBAUGH: And you're gonna have reports, who knows how often, on your work, patient by patient, and somebody in Washington is gonna say whether or not you're doing quality work. And if it's judged that you're doing quality work -- and I'll guarantee you this: The odds are that if you are a Republican doctor and you have not donated to Democrats, and there's no record of you making campaign contributions to Democrats or Obama, your work will not be judged as often as quality as Democrat doctor donors' work will be judged as quality.

Before heading into the commercial break, Rush said that he was baffled as to what Obama meant by “bundling payments” to doctors, admitting he didn't know what Obama meant.

After the break, Rush noted that he found out what “bundling payments” means: it means that payments would be withheld and a bunch would be sent at once. Rush claimed that this would hurt doctors' cash flow, and this idea was offensive and dangerous. We have a president, said Rush, who doesn't know anything about the private sector, and who is going to judge the quality of doctors' work. Actually, it sounded like Obama had a pretty good idea what he was talking about -bundling medical payments to lower overall health care costs. It was Rush, on the other hand, who triumphantly announced leading into this segment that he had just been informed what bundled payments are. So he spent half of the previous segment inveighing ferociously against bundled payments, despite not knowing what he was talking about, and then returned to attack Obama for talking about health care reform despite knowing nothing about the private sector. Brilliant.

Rush continued his rant, claiming that the federal government is a disaster, but Obama never does anything about what he is actually in charge of, and that Obama is only trying to expand the federal government's authority. Going back to the latest Democratic “villain” -- obesity -- Rush found a quote from Thomas Friedan, director of the CDC, saying that "[r]eversing obesity is not going to be done successfully with individual effort." Rush asserted that this wiped out the whole notion of personal responsibility. Rush declared that this was all “disguised loss and erosion of liberty as compassion.”

After another break, Rush wondered why Obama was engaging in all these “attacks” on doctors. In whose polluted mind, asked Rush, are doctors the enemy? They “damn sure” appear to be with this man, said Rush, just like insurance agents, Wall Street, and auto executives. Rush also mentioned that he is still “seething” over the idea of judging doctors by the quality of their work -- because it would be intrusive -- and the thought of bundling their payments.

Then it was on to more audio of Obama's remarks today. The first was of Obama noting that we spend more per capita on health care than any other industrialized nation, but we aren't any healthier for it. Rush was rendered speechless (in his own words, paradoxically), and suggested that the next time one of the president's daughters gets sick, Obama should fly them over to Denmark and not burden the U.S. system, which is the best in the world. Rush then found himself even more flabbergasted that Obama said that people hear the words “socialized medicine” even though he is not talking about a Canadian-style plan. Rush claimed that we just finished listening to several sound bites of Obama explaining the intricate, complex control of his plan, and now he's saying that's not going to happen.

Next up was an audio bite of Obama explaining how the House bill would make it easier for people to fill out a living will, which he thinks is a good thing, but it wouldn't force anybody to make end-of-life decisions. Rush says this is false, because under the House bill, “every five years, some counselor shows up to start counseling you. ... And when [Obama] says they don't have enough government workers to go around and counsel people, the answer to that is: We don't have enough yet. But we can get 'em.” This just not true. Every single bit of what he said is not true. We pointed this out when Rush first lied about this -- there are no government counselors, the legislation provides for consultations between patients and practitioners. And this very issue was the topic of a Politico article today, which did much to rebut the health reform falsehoods of Rush's primary source for health care misinformation, Betsy McCaughey: “The provision would require Medicare to cover advanced care consultations for the first time, but it does not mandate individuals to take advantage of the benefit, proponents say. The consultations would take place between the patient and a doctor or nurse practitioner, not a government bureaucrat. And there would be no requirement for the individual to sign a directive or living will at the end of the discussion.”

One more break, and it was back to the supposedly villainous obese. Rush read a Los Angeles Times blog entry suggesting a tax on food to pay for health care. After cracking some jokes about this, Rush claimed that Obama is implying we don't even need doctors, because his IMAC plan would just list what is the best solution for a patient and Medicare would take care of it. Rush concluded his show with a caller who told Rush he thought Americans were finally waking up to Obama's “thug” politics. Rush agreed, saying that more Americans are realizing Obama is not who they thought he was when they voted for him.

And that does it for today. Please be sure to tune into the Limbaugh Wire tomorrow, and give a quick perusal of the Limbaugh Wire archives before stopping by. It's lots of fun. Trust us. We know fun. And they're it.

Simon Maloy, Zachary Pleat, and Ariana Probinsky contributed to this edition of the Limbaugh Wire.

Highlights from Hour 3

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: There ought not be one doctor in this country supporting this. There ought not be one nurse because they're going to be culpable, too, you know. They're in the game.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: You doctors out there, you know what you're facing if you stay in this business and this thing happens? You are going to become indentured federal servants. And you're gonna have reports, who knows how often, on your work, patient by patient, and somebody in Washington is gonna say whether or not you're doing quality work. And if it's judged that you're doing quality work -- and I'll guarantee you this: The odds are that if you are a Republican doctor and you have not donated to Democrats, and there's no record of you making campaign contributions to Democrats or Obama, your work will not be judged as often as quality as Democrat doctor donors' work will be judged as quality.

America's Truth Rejector

Rush claimed that under health care reform, you would be “denied coverage if you aren't trying to help do the right thing for yourself”:

LIMBAUGH: You are gonna be denied coverage if you aren't trying to help do the right thing for yourself. You are not gonna be treated. You're gonna be deemed too expensive. The investment in you is not gonna be worth it.

Rush still claiming that the House bill has a provision stating that every five years, the elderly will undergo end-of-life counseling from government workers:

LIMBAUGH: And it's in the House bill. Once you reach -- I don't know what the age is -- every five years -- it's in the 60s -- every five years, some counselor shows up to start counseling you: “OK, we both know that you got a lot more years behind you than you have in front of you, and we got to talk about what the the next few years hold, and look at your health as it is now. And, oh by the way, here's the living will we want you to fill out here.”

And when he says they don't have enough government workers to go around and counsel people, the answer to that is: We don't have enough yet. But we can get 'em. We can get 'em from the union; we can get 'em from the Service Employees Union; we can get 'em from the Teamsters. We -- how would you like some of those guys coming in to counsel you at your end of life?