Rush's convoluted conspiracy: Dems need to hurry health care now so they can pass “amnesty” before the 2010 elections

By Greg Lewis

Happy Thursday! Rush greeted us this afternoon by warning his audience that it was not time to celebrate Howard Dean's attacks on President Obama over the Senate health care bill. Rush said that Dean doesn't realize it, but he's “being used.” Elaborating on this claim, Rush said that there was an “effort” by the media and the White House to give Dean a lot of media access to make Obama look centrist and reasonable, when, in reality, he is as leftist and irrational as Dean.

Then Rush explained the “five elements” of why Democrats are trying to hurry the health care bill through Congress. One: The longer it's in the news, the more people learn about it and don't like it. Two: Senators will “catch hell” during the winter recess and will shift their attention toward the 2010 elections. And then, uh...three? Or was the second part of “two” the third one? The counting sort of became unclear at this point, but Rush's other “elements” for the hurry were that Democrats have to get it passed before they do amnesty because that would raise insurance too much since the CBO hasn't scored the cost of providing insurance to “illegals.” Also, added Rush, they have to do amnesty before the 2010 elections...for some reason. He didn't specify why.

Next, Rush took on Obama's appearance on last night's ABC's World News with Charles Gibson. Rush called Obama tone deaf for saying that if the bill isn't passed, premiums will go up and the federal government will go bankrupt because Medicare and Medicaid are on an unsustainable trajectory. Rush deflected Obama's claims by claiming we are on the verge of a “huge uptick” of inflation.

Rush credits God's sense of humor for “blizzard” in Copenhagen

Following his criticism of Obama, Rush set his sites on the Copenhagen climate conference. He didn't actually address anything substantive, just gleefully pointed out the fact that it's snowing there. Apparently, as Rush later explained, God must have a sense of humor for causing it to snow in Scandinavia in December.

After making a fuss about the media's tendency to report on economic news as “unexpected,” (i.e. new jobless claims unexpectedly went up, etc), Rush discussed Sen. Tom Coburn's obstructionist tactic in the Senate, which Rush gushed about on his program yesterday. Rush claimed that Sen. Bernie Sanders broke Senate rules when he interrupted the reading of his amendment in order to pull it. Rush said that there needed to be unanimous consent to do this.

Rush attempts to explain the public option; fails miserably

Following another commercial break, Rush appeared to transition into wonk mode in order to discuss the details of health care reform. Of course, if you know Rush's history when it comes to health care misinformation, you can probably guess that this didn't go very well.

He started by noting that the left is unhappy (in debate over would be a more apt description) over the individual mandate that's in the bill, which would require that everyone have health insurance. And since there will no longer be a public option, this means that people would have to buy insurance from the private insurers.

So far so good. But then Rush departed from fact and returned to his fantasy world. He claimed that the public option would have been cheap on purpose and by design so that businesses would offload their plans onto the public option. Well, maybe in theory, but the public option that had been under discussion in the Senate did nothing of the sort. Since it was limited to the insurance exchanges -- which in turn were limited at first to only those without insurance from their employers and small businesses -- and because it was thought the people on the public option would be in worse health than on other plans, estimates of premiums under the public option were slightly higher than private insurance premiums.

Also, it wouldn't have been possible for most businesses to “offload” their employees onto the public option, either, because of the limits of the insurance exchanges. So Limbaugh is trying to sound smart by sounding knowledgeable, but he wasn't discussing what was actually on the table before Lieberman got his way.

Next, Limbaugh said that liberals were ultimately against more competition, because if they were for competition, they would be open to allowing insurance companies to compete across state lines. But the reason that's generally not a popular idea amongst Democrats is probably because it's a terrible idea, at least without a strong set of national regulations in place. But as Republicans have proposed it, without such regulations, the effect would be a race to the bottom for insurers.

Rush continued to beat on the drum of conspiracy with his claim that Democrats are actively trying to destroy private sector competition. He claimed they were using “Alinskyite” methods to mask their true destruction of the private sector.

Rush defends insurers' right to deny people with pre-existing conditions

Things got worse from there, however, when Limbaugh decided it was the right time to defend the fact that insurance companies can deny people coverage based on pre-existing conditions. He started by answering the question of why insurance premiums would go up because of health care reform. The answer? Because the bill would mandate that people with pre-existing conditions be covered (or that insurance companies wouldn't be able to deny coverage to a person based on pre-existing conditions).

Rush claimed that this wouldn't make any economic sense for insurers because they would have to raise premiums to make up taking on customers who are “guaranteed” losses for them. Of course, Limbaugh left out the flip side of the individual mandate -- that healthy people would have to get insurance too, thereby increasing the insurance pool for the insurers to counter this economic reality. Limbaugh did note that the bill contains subsidies for people to help them afford insurance.

But Rush continued to falsely claim that premiums would “skyrocket” because of the pre-existing conditions mandate, and he also contested the notion that health care should be a right.

Rush shocked -- shocked! -- bill would mandate coverage for “women's issues”

The second hour began with Rush continuing his vendetta against allowing people with pre-existing conditions to have health insurance. But it wasn't just pre-existing conditions that Rush was worked up over. He expressed shock that an amendment to that bill would prevent insurers from denying coverage for spousal abuse, mammograms, and “other women's issues”:

LIMBAUGH: Now, about the premiums going up, and my brilliant dissertation on why prices will go up in the private sector, even if the public option's not there and even if the Medicare buy-in is not there. It's not just preconditions that are mandated to be covered in the health care bills in either the House or the Senate.

There was a recent amendment that added mandating private insurers to provide mammogram and other women's issues coverage, including spousal abuse -- insurance for spousal abuse! And mammograms, even though the mammogram age is going to be raised to the age of 50. You think of all the mandates that are gonna be added onto private insurance, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Limbaugh went on to compare pre-existing conditions to risky behavior like race car driving, mountain climbing, and smoking. He claimed that the legislation would also force insurers to cover these “high premium” people, also causing prices to sky rocket. In the middle of all of this, Rush maintained that he was “not heartless” and that he was “not dumping” on people with illnesses (and yet he doesn't think people with illnesses should have access to health insurance?).

But, as with any Limbaugh rant, this one boiled down to his claim that the health care bill was really a “control issue” for Obama in his quest to create a “radical” bill.

Limbaugh's next tweak was a new report by the Centers for Disease Control finding that since January 2008, over 60 million people went without health insurance for some period of time. Rush was apoplectic over what he considered to be the administration's “perversion” of science and statistics. He went after the CDC's credibility because they weren't even able to predict the severity of the swine flu and botched the vaccine. But the questions Rush really wanted answered in regards to this report was how many people lost insurance/jobs/houses since Obama became president. He charged that the answer was that Obama and his policies are an utter disaster and continued to suggest political motivations behind the CDC report.

After some more outrage over what Limbaugh would want you to think was Bernie Sander's defecation on Senate protocol, he closed out the hour with clips of David Axelrod defending the health care bill from Howard Dean's charges.

Rush: If you understand fascists, Marxists, socialists, “you understand ... Democrat Party”

The final hour started with Rush reading a Wall Street Journal write up of the paper's recent poll finding Democrats continuing their “slump.” This was followed by Rush's lengthy explanation of why banks aren't lending to the private sector. According to Rush, since the Federal Reserve's interest rates are near zero, that means banks are borrowing money from the government for “free” and then lending it back to the government in the form of Treasury bills at 3 percent interest. Since banks are making such a killing off that, they're only lending to the government, and not to the private sector. Limbaugh's solution was for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to 3 percent to take away the incentive for banks to loan to the government and start lending to the private sector instead.

What it all came down to, as Rush concluded, was that you have to watch out for liberal fascists, and that all of this is Obama's fault:

LIMBAUGH: It just takes courage to admit what you see. And a lot of people don't want to get ideological. A lot of people think being ideological is close-minded. No, no, no, no. Being ideological is the epitome of being informed. Being ideological -- understanding what a Marxist is, understanding what a liberal is, understanding what a socialist and fascist is -- if you understand those things, you understand the modern-day Democrat Party.

After another commercial break, Rush took a caller who asked how he should respond to charges that Republicans are hypocrites for opposing cuts in Medicare spending under the health care bill when Republicans are usually the ones who are against “big government.” Rush was happy to answer the caller's question. The caller was right theoretically, said Rush, but the “cuts” would have a “disastrous effect” on senior citizens. Rush added that while he supports reducing the size of government, he doesn't support “breaking” promises that you made to people. He would rather not just cut programs like Medicare, but “reform” them by “replacing” the programs. With what, you ask? He didn't say.

As he went on with his, as I call it, “politics trump ideology” rationalization, Rush somehow got sidetracked on the 1986 tax cut bill which “caused” the S&L crisis. And the S&L crisis gave us the Keating Five scandal, aka, “standard, ordinary, everyday corruption,” which he didn't sound too outraged over:

LIMBAUGH: The S&L -- we bailed 'em out -- we ended up bailing out some of the S&Ls, and that gave us the Keating Five, if you remember, that McCain was part of -- you know, standard, ordinary, everyday corruption that exists throughout any large government bureaucracy.

Things that Rush does get outraged over? Bernie Sanders sort-of-but-not-really breaking a Senate parliamentary rule in order to put an end to a deliberate attempt by Republicans to obstruct a bill that they opposed. Just sayin'.

Zachary Pleat and Zachary Aronow contributed to this edition of the Limbaugh Wire.

Highlights

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: It just takes courage to admit what you see. And a lot of people don't want to get ideological. A lot of people think being ideological is close-minded. No, no, no, no. Being ideological is the epitome of being informed. Being ideological -- understanding what a Marxist is, understanding what a liberal is, understanding what a socialist and fascist is -- if you understand those things, you understand the modern-day Democrat Party.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: The S&L -- we bailed 'em out -- we ended up bailing out some of the S&Ls, and that gave us the Keating Five, if you remember, that McCain was part of -- you know, standard, ordinary, everyday corruption that exists throughout any large government bureaucracy.

Ladies' man

LIMBAUGH: Now, about the premiums going up, and my brilliant dissertation on why prices will go up in the private sector, even if the public option's not there and even if the Medicare buy-in is not there. It's not just preconditions that are mandated to be covered in the health care bills in either the House or the Senate.

There was a recent amendment that added mandating private insurers to provide mammogram and other women's issues coverage, including spousal abuse -- insurance for spousal abuse! And mammograms, even though the mammogram age is going to be raised to the age of 50. You think of all the mandates that are gonna be added onto private insurance, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.