On Monday, Dr. Benjamin Carson, the former director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital, said he and his family were targeted by the IRS in retribution for comments critical of Barack Obama, Newsmax reported.
According to Carson, audits and other harassment began in May or June of 2013, just a few months after his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast. Gradually, he added, the harassment expanded to include family members, associates, and his charitable endeavors.
"I’ve been quite -- I would say astonished at the level of hostility that I have encountered," he told Newsmax TV's John Bachman.
"The IRS has investigated me. They said, ‘I want to look at your real estate holdings.’ There was nothing there. ‘Well, let’s expand to an entire [year], everything.’ There was nothing there. ‘Let’s do another year.’ Finally, after a few months, they went away. But they’ve come after my family, they’ve come after my friends, they’ve come after associates," he added.
Until now, Newsmax said, Dr. Carson has shied away from tying the IRS actions to his criticism of Obama, but now he says Americans live "in a Gestapo age" even though they may not realize it.
He also said Congress has to step up to the plate and do its job.
"The reason we have divided government is if one branch of the government gets out of control, starts thinking they’re too big for their britches, you need to be able to have control," he said.
Unfortunately, Congress as a whole has shown little interest in keeping the administration in check, but a handful of conservative Republicans have spoken out.
Carson told Newsmax this is the first time he's ever been audited by the IRS.
He also said the agency has targeted his children, but didn't go into much detail, expressing concern the agency would expand their probe even further.
Newsmax added:
He also said a charitable organization that aids inmates’ children was informed last year, for the first time in recent years, that they would no longer be receiving a $1 million annual grant from the Justice Department.
"This is solely because you were involved?" Bachman asked.
"Correct," Carson said.
He also told Newsmax these acts of retribution take place because Americans refuse to take action.
"We sit there and we say, ‘Oh this is horrible.’ But we don’t do anything. And see, that’s what I’m trying to get our congressional people, our lawmakers – they’ve got to get courage," he said. "Because why would anybody who has an agenda to fundamentally change this nation, why would they stop if no one is opposing them?"
Carson also believes the retribution will continue, but promises he will not be forced into silence.
"The only reason that I haven’t shut up is because in Romans 8 it says ‘If God be for you, who can be against you?’ And I believe in that protection that God gives you," he added.
Carson's experience is "not that different from what many others are experiencing," said GOP lawyer Cleta Mitchell. "It’s quite, quite troublesome and disturbing."
"I have heard this same story over and over and over throughout the last year," she said. "I cannot tell you how many donors to conservative organizations, people who have become active, have said ‘I was never audited until I started giving money to X conservative candidate or cause.’"
Acording to Mitchell, the targeting includes donors to candidates like Mitt Romney and Rick Perry and donors to conservative issue groups.
The IRS has not just limited itself to targeting conservative donors, Tea Party groups or well-known conservatives.
As we reported last November, a cancer patient critical of Obamacare was targeted by the IRS.
Mitchell said the situation is "pretty scary because the people who are supposed to be the neutral arbiter and law enforcement officials appear to me to be completely in the bag for the administration."
My friends at American Legacy PAC are launching an important new project called Save our Healthcare - and I will be serving as Chairman.
Let me tell you a bit more about what we’ll be doing, and how you can help.
When I spoke just feet away from President Obama about the dangers of political correctness at last year’s National Prayer Breakfast, many were surprised.
After all, my background is medicine, not politics.
But it doesn’t take a brain surgeon like me to see that America is facing serious problems. And right now, the number one problem is Obamacare.
Dropped coverage, failing websites, skyrocketing premiums - the list goes on and on.
I wish I could snap my fingers and make Obamacare disappear tomorrow, but we both know that won’t happen.
That’s why we’re launching Save our Healthcare - a national citizens’ effort to hold Washington accountable, re-center the healthcare debate around doctors and patients, and begin to answer the question of “What’s next?” - because real reform is absolutely vital.
It is our goal to recruit every American that believes we can do better than Obamacare, and make sure that our message is received loud and clear by every elected official and candidate in 2014.
Please sign up to support this project, and ask your friends and family to do the same.
Published on Feb 15, 2013: A politically incorrect speech by Dr. Benjamin Carson; criticizing government policies at the National Prayer Breakfast, attended by President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.
JoshuaPundit: With everything else that's going on, this hasn't gotten as much notice as it should. Even the drones at CBS can't conceal what a trainwreck this is. And now the President is simply manipulating things to move past the 2014 midterms, and not even the Obama Media can avoid it.
Oh, one more thing...it's totally illegal.The law does not allow any discretion whatsoever in its timetables. The President is simply taking unprecedented powers - again- while the media covers for him and the Republicans in the House let another opportunity go by.
The truth of the matter is that ObamaCare is truly a poorly thought out piece of legislation. That's because it was shoved through in a quasi-legal fashion using the reconciliation process reserved for budget matters to avoid having to bring the House bill to a confirming vote in the senate after Scott Brown was elected in Massachusetts.
The individual provisions of ObamaCare, the taxes, the fines, the obscene diktats - still remain and will kick in 2014. After the midterms, in 2015, you will indeed see massive layoffs and workers thrown out of their company health plans to be forced into ObamaCare health exchanges...which are still in the process of being defined!
One thing we already know is that a minimum coverage Bronze level policy will cost $20,000 per year for a family of five, that rationing will be the new normal and that long waits to see a doctor if you're even allowed to have a procedure will be standard. And amnestia? Any bill that provides amnesty for the 11 to 12 million illegal aliens now in the U.S. and gives them access to Obama Care (and it's difficult to see how they can or should be excluded)is going to exacerbate these problems.
Needless to say, the Leftist elites from President Obama on down who lied to you aren't going to be faced with this choice...they have their own plan that covers themselves and their families that's far cheaper, better and more inclusive.
I agree with talk show host Mark Levin here. Instead of allowing the Prevaricator-in chief to get away with this, what if Boehner(or hopefully someone more articulate) went on television and simply told the American people that they were shutting down the government for a week or however long it takes to slash the money going into ObamaCare to protect their healthcare, to keep their premiums from going up, to allow their employer to keep from laying them off or make them switch to part time work. That President Obama was acting illegally to try and shove through a poorly thought out and highly damaging law, and that the House, with the power of the purse was going to act for the benefit of all Americans by exercising this oversight.
As a matter of fact, the House could have stopped ObamaCare or any of this presidents other serial abuses of power at any time simply by refusing to fund them. But that would have taken courage and principle.
How long, O Lord?’
Well low and behold… Speaker Boehner with a print out of the ObamaCare Bill… and still growing at his side actually did step up and speak out… just not vehemently enough:
WASHINGTON, DC – MAY 16: Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) stands next to a printed version of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, during a news conference on Capitol Hill May 16, 2013 in Washington, DC. On top of calling for the repeal of Obamacare, Boehner fielded questions from reporters about the Obama Administrations’ subpoena of AP phone records, the IRS scrutiny of conservative political groups’ applications for tax exemption and other issues. Credit: Getty Images
WASHINGTON (TheBlaze/AP) — Republicans finally seized upon the administration’s abrupt delay of the employer mandate in the health care law as fresh evidence that President Barack Obama’s signature domestic policy is unworkable and should be repealed, an argument that energizes the party base ahead of 2014 congressional elections. 58% of Americans now want ObamaCare repealed in its entirety.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said the administration’s unexpected postponement of a key provision designed to insure more Americans was an admission that the 2010 law is unfeasible. Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce’s oversight panel embarked on an investigation of the decision, seeking documents from the Treasury and the Health and Human Services departments.
“House Energy and Commerce Committee leaders today wrote to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, and Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, requesting documents and information regarding the administration’s decision to delay full implementation of the health care law’s employer mandate for one year. The Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA), has held a series of hearings on the president’s health care law and will examine the administration’s delay of the employer mandate in the coming weeks,” read a statement from House Republicans.
But the White House’s willingness to respond to the concerns of business – and avoid the specter of job layoffs due to the unpopular health care law – spares Democrats one political headache in next year’s races.
“The best delay for Obamacare is a permanent one,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said Wednesday, hours after the administration announced a one-year delay in requiring businesses with 50 or more employees to provide health coverage for their workers or pay a penalty.
Success in midterm elections depends in large part on turning out the party’s core voters, and Republicans see the latest twist as an opportunity to further vilify the health care law and ignite a GOP base already strongly opposed to Obama’s overhaul. GOP members of Congress pounced on the administration’s decision to make a point they hope will resonate with voters in their states.
“I’ve heard from countless employers in Maine who say that the onerous penalties and provisions in Obamacare provide perverse and powerful incentives to not hire new workers or to cut back on the hours that their employees are allowed to work,” said Senator Susan Collins, who faces re-election next year.
In their strategy for next year’s elections, Republicans were determined to focus on how medium and large businesses would respond to the law’s requirement and the possibility that would translate into job losses. The GOP was ready to place the blame on Democrats who voted for the law if companies had to lay off workers.
The one-year delay to January 2015 largely erases that aspect of the health care criticism in the midterm-election year.
Ken Hoagland, chairman of the conservative Restore America’s Voice and a fierce opponent of the law, said it spares House and Senate Democrats who voted for the law.
“Pushing back the economic damage of Obamacare past the next election won’t change the reality of harm to employees or to the overall economy,” Hoagland said in an interview. “It just seeks to protect those responsible for the legislation.”
Democrats sought to cast the issue as the administration listening to the business community.
“The administration has demonstrated its commitment to implement the Affordable Care Act with increased flexibility for the 4 percent of America’s businesses impacted by the employer responsibility requirement,” House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said in a statement Wednesday.
Pelosi argued that a significant majority of businesses already provide health insurance to their employees. The California lawmaker who was instrumental in ensuring the law’s passage when she was speaker of the House insisted that Americans will soon benefit from increased access to affordable health care.
Democrats have always been dogged by the fact that few Americans understand the law and many fear its effect.
In the most recent polling, the Kaiser Family Foundation found that more Americans view the law unfavorably than favorably, a negative tilt that has remained steady since Obama signed it in March 2010. The foundation’s survey this spring found 43 percent with an unfavorable opinion of the law, 35 percent with a favorable view and 23 percent undecided.
The poll also found more people saying the nation will be worse off under the law than better off, a switch from public opinion immediately following its passage.
Democratic strategist Steve Elmendorf said Americans opposed to the law remain vehement while other Americans are waiting to see what happens.
The administration’s one-year delay “impacts a very small number. … A lot more people are going to be impacted by their ability to get insurance in the exchanges, removal of pre-existing conditions and by ultimately what the price is going to be. … I think in terms of the `14 elections, I just don’t see this particular decision having much impact.”
Brad Dayspring, a spokesman for the Senate Republicans’ campaign committee, called the move “the worst of all worlds for Democratic candidates” because it will frustrate liberals who support the law while doing little to quiet Republican derision.
“What is a Democratic candidate supposed to say in light of this?” Dayspring said. “‘Yes, I supported Obamacare, but thankfully we delayed it to protect you from how bad it is’?”
Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, who won last year in Republican-leaning North Dakota, offered a template for how Democrats could respond when faced with questions about the health care law and the administration’s latest move.
“I have repeatedly said that there is good and bad in the health care law, and we need to improve it. One improvement needed is to make it as simple as possible for our businesses to comply. I applaud the administration for delaying this requirement until there is a system in place that is workable for businesses,” she said in a statement.
Thus far the response from the Obama Administration:
There are people working on alternatives out there… people like Dr. Ben Carson. Get-involved and educate yourself on this law.
Avoiding Obamacare! Rescind your signature with social security, and yes it is possible and legal!
Secondly, know that UNLESS you are a naturalized citizen, you are NOT a US CITIZEN! only US CITIZENS are subject to Obamacare!!! STATUTE AT LARGE to become a US citizen, act of Congress of April 1802, (2 Stat. 153, c. 28, § 1; Rev. St. § 2165 THAT ACT SAYS, and PAY ATTENTION; provides that “an alien may be admitted to become a citizen of the United States in the following manner, AND NOT OTHERWISE!!.”
The following of the act is paraphrased to save room for this to post!
1) That YOU 2 yrs prior to admission absolutely renounced and abjure all allegiance and fidelity “before a court” to any potentate or sovereignty. 2) And had given YOUR intentions to the court to become a U.S. Citizen / SUBJECT of a corporate nature in writing. There is no other provision of the acts of congress under which YOU could have been naturalized. The Court and public law, did State” AND NOT OTHERWISE.” “which proceedings shall be recorded by the clerk of the court.” And since the STATUTE AT LARGE, NOT code, says IT SHALL BE RECORDED in fact two. 3) reside “within” the US for 5 yrs, 1 yr in the state or territory where such court is and be a “MAN” of good moral character. If you haven’t done ALL the above, YOU ARE NOT A US CITIZEN!
A record number of voters want the 2010 Affordable Care Act repealed entirely, while sizable majorities say they are worried about their health care under the new law and expect their medical costs will go up, according to a new Fox News poll. The poll, released Wednesday, finds that 58 percent of voters favor repealing all (39 percent) or some (19 percent) of President Obama’s signature legislative achievement. Another 19 percent would leave the law as is, while 17 percent would expand its coverage further…A 62-percent majority of independents favors repealing at least some of the law.
NewsMax: Most voters continue to favor repeal of the national healthcare bill, but nearly half see repeal as unlikely. A plurality believes repeal would be good for the economy. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 58 percent of voters favor repeal, including 48 percent who strongly favor it. Thirty-seven percent are opposed to repeal, with 28 percent who are strongly opposed.
Support for repeal is up two points from a week ago but is consistent with findings recorded over the past several months. Weekly tracking surveys have found support for repeal has ranged from 52 percent to 63 percent.
Forty-four percent believe repeal of the healthcare bill would be good for the economy. Twenty-eight percent say repeal would hurt the economy. These views have not changed since earlier this month.
But just 39 percent think it even somewhat likely that the new law will actually be repealed. Forty-eight percent of voters see repeal as unlikely. Those figures include nine percent who say repeal is very likely and 10 percent say it’s not at all likely. Democrats continue to be much more supportive of the healthcare bill and much more confident of its benefits than are Republicans and voters not affiliated with either party…
Thirty-four percent of voters say the healthcare plan is good for the country, but most voters (53 percent) see its impact as bad. Fifty percent or more of voters have said the plan is bad for the country since late March.
While a solid plurality of voters believe repeal would be good for the economy, just 27 percent say repeal would create new jobs. Thirty-six percent disagree and say new jobs would not be created and a sizable 37 percent are not sure.
Earlier this month, 45 percent said repeal was unlikely, but in April 51 percent felt that way.
Forty-nine percent of mainstream voters think repeal is likely, but 72 percent of the political class feel otherwise and believe repeal is unlikely to take place.
The political class also champions the healthcare bill much more strongly than mainstream voters. Fifty-four percent of mainstream voters, for example, think repeal of the bill would be good for the economy. However, 72 percent of the political class say repeal would have a bad impact on the economy.
But then 70 percent of mainstream voters favor repeal of the healthcare bill. Ninety-five percent of the political class are opposed.
Sixty-eight percent of all voters nationwide believe the nation’s political class doesn’t “care what most Americans think” anyway. Voters strongly believe that more competition and less regulation would be better for the economy and job creation.
Looking back, voters remain unhappy with the government bailouts of the financial industry and troubled automakers General Motors and Chrysler.
The survey of 1,000 likely voters was conducted on July 24-25, 2010, by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95 percent level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC.
Nearly three times as many voters say the health care law makes them feel more worried (66 percent) rather than reassured (23 percent). And the anxiety is rising — the number feeling worried is up 15 percentage points since July 2012, soon after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the law constitutional last year. Concern is widespread, as more than 60 percent in every age group feel worried about their health care in the future. It peaks at 70 percent among those ages 65 and over. Overall, 65 percent of voters think their health care costs will increase under the law. Few — eight percent — say their costs will go down, while 24 percent thinks costs will stay about the same.
Eight percent of Americans now believe the president’s central promise will come true. That’s half the percentage of Americans who approve of Congress, which really puts that abysmal number in perspective. Nearly three-fifths of the population wants Obamacare repealed, and almost two-thirds of Americans expect their costs to rise. But keep on laughing at the GOP for trying to undo this monstrosity, media folks — especially now that the hyper-credible Internal Revenue Service is prominently tied to the law.
Comment: “Liar liar pants on fire. Obamacare, in fact, will increase individual-market premiums in California by as much as 146 percent.” …EddieFry
Betsy McCaughey, one of the few people on Earth who’s actually read the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” (aka Obamacare), wrote this recent article which I believe is worth adding to the echo chamber.
If you have to keep it a secret, you probably shouldn't be doing it.
But the California legislature and the new Covered California health insurance exchange are conspiring to keep secret how they will dole out more than half a billion dollars in taxpayer dollars to contractors. The lion's share of the money is going for what the exchange budget terms "outreach."
In truth, the money is going to build Democratic Party enrollment.
The Obama administration granted a whopping $910 million to California to set up its insurance exchange. That money is not for bandages, surgery, nurses and doctors to care for the sick. Nor is it for insurance plans, though $910 million could buy generous coverage for at least 113,000 people!
Shockingly, the $910 million is slated for bureaucracy, including rich compensation packages for exchange employees ($360,000 a year for the executive director) and contracts for computer equipment, public relations and "outreach."
Outreach is the largest expenditure and where the real monkey business occurs.
Amazingly, California legislators passed a law that the exchange could keep secret for a year who received the contracts and indefinitely how much they were paid. California's open-records laws would otherwise prohibit such secrecy.
Last week, Republican U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and four other Republican senators on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee called for an investigation of California's concealing information on contracts awarded using federal taxpayer money.
What is known so far suggests that California politicians are exploiting health reform to enroll millions of the uninsured in the Democratic Party and fill the coffers of left-wing interest groups with taxpayer money.
Here are the facts to back up that cynical picture:
California lawmakers passed a law (Senate Bill 35) requiring that voter registration be part of the health insurance exchange.
Last month, Covered California announced $37 million in grants to 48 organizations to build public awareness about the opening of the health exchange on Oct. 1.
Of the 48 organizations that got grants, only a handful are health-care related. The California NAACP received $600,000 to do door-to-door canvassing and presentations at community organizations.
Service Employees International Union, which says its mission is "economic justice," received two grants totaling $2 million to make phone calls, robo-calls and go door to door.
The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor AFL-CIO got $1 million for door-to-door, one-on-one education and social networking. It describes its role as "engaging in both organizing and political campaigns, electing pro-union and pro-worker candidates."
Community Health Councils, a California organization with a long history of political activism against fracking, for-profit hospitals, state budget cuts and oil exploration, got $1 million to conduct presentations at community and neighborhood meetings and one-to-one sessions.
These organizations, closely allied with the Democratic Party, are being funded by your tax dollars to conduct "outreach," meaning the kind of phone banking and door-to-door canvassing that activists do to turn out the vote. They will turn out the uninsured to enroll on the exchanges and in the Democratic Party.
The $37 million awarded last month is only the first installment of California's $190.4 million to be spent on contracts for "outreach" through December 2014.
In addition to outreach, California's actual enrollment process is also outsourced to employees of community organizations, unions and health clinics. These enrollment "assisters" will be paid $58 for each enrollee they sign up. An additional $49 million is budgeted to pay them the first year, but in future years, assisters will be paid out of the premiums collected by the exchange.
The template is repeated in every state. The Obama health law creates a permanent stream of funding for unions and community activists by outsourcing insurance enrollment to them.
Assisters will also guide the uninsured to sign up for whatever non-health social services they may be eligible for, including welfare, food stamps and housing assistance, according to the manual prepared by the Community Health Councils for California's implementation.
Anyone who remembers the days of James Curley, Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall gets the picture. If you were poor or a newcomer to this country, you went to the local ward boss and got whatever you needed in exchange for your vote.
The difference is that back then, politics was local. Now the Obama health law is institutionalizing this corrupt style of politics across the country. Whether you live in California or New York, local community activists and unions will be recruiting people to enroll in ObamaCare and sign up to be part of the permanent, beholden Democratic voting majority.
And just ask anyone who comes from a country with a one-party system… they will tell you horror stories upon horror stories.
Her basic premise is that Obamacare is not about health care (even a synopsis of the bill tells you that), it’s about funding a permanent Democrat majority.
How? McCaughey believes that this is done through “awareness” programs using typical Democrat muscle (unions, community organizations, the usual suspects) to receive much of this government funding to help get the word out about Obamacare. It’s a money laundering scheme using taxpayer’s money to ultimately assist Democrat get-out-the-vote drives, very much like what the Stimulus was used for.
Sean Hannity, Neil Cavuto, Governor Huckabee and Rush Limbaugh also featured similar discussions on their radio shows this past week:
Rush Limbaugh/EIB:
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I hate to do this to you, but the Investor's Business Daily had an editorial yesterday, and they have discovered the purpose of Obamacare. It has nothing to do with health care. The purpose of Obamacare got nothing to do with your health, and nothing to do with your insurance.
It's about building a permanent, undefeatable, always-funded Democrat majority. One example: The exchanges. We're being told that the government's running way behind on setting up the exchanges, and we're being told it's because the bill so complicated, big, unmanageable. Nobody could possibly get this done on time. IBD has tracked how these exchanges are being set up, and basically the health care exchanges in these states are going to be Democrat political action committees, funded with your tax dollars.
They're going to operate under the guise of selling you your health insurance when in fact what they're going to be doing is providing employment for Democrats and Democrat voters and Democrat operatives. They are going to use the exchanges to give out money to sympathetic Democrats and people who vote for other Democrats. I'll give you the details. It's on a par with how I've tried to explain that the stimulus was a money-laundering operation for Democrat campaign coffers.
Because the vast majority of stimulus money went to keep government union employees working. It went to make sure they weren't laid off in a really bad and down economy. State and local union employees pay dues. They're required to pay it. The dues are collected by Democrat union leaders. They run all the union organizations, and the dues are what fund Democrat campaigns. Well, you can't collect dues if the people aren't working. If you're the Democrats, you can't (not yet, anyway) just write a check for $900 billion to the US Treasury and then start giving it away.
But you can come up with a "stimulus" bill that you tell people it's all about creating jobs and roads and bridges and building up infrastructure. Then you get the check, and you are in charge of how the money is spent and where it goes, and you see to it that it ends up ultimately in the back pockets of union employees so that they continue to be employed and paying dues. So it's a roundabout way of getting $900 billion, or a percentage of it, back to the Democrat Party in campaign contributions.
That's what the stimulus bill was!
I'll take a break. Take a couple phone calls, and then I will share with you the dirty details of the Investors Business Daily editorial on what is really happening with Obamacare and the exchanges.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, on to the Investor's Business Daily. They have an editorial that explains in quite extensive detail how Obamacare is actually a funding operation for Democrat Party operatives and a technique for improving increasing Democrat Party voter registration.
"The Obama administration granted a whopping $910 million to California to set up its insurance exchange. That money is not for bandages, surgery, nurses and doctors to care for the sick. ... Shockingly, the $910 million is slated for bureaucracy, including rich compensation packages for exchange employees." In fact, the executive director of the exchange in California will make $360,000 a year. The exchange money, this $910 million, is being used for computer equipment, public relations, and outreach.
What is the exchange? It's supposedly where you go, by mandate, to buy your health insurance. The exchange is supposed to just be a catalog, basically. And the only thing in the catalog are insurance policies, and you go there and you pick yours. You go there, decide what you want. That's what the exchange is. Instead, the regime has decided to use these exchanges, probably part of the original plan, as Democrat get-out-the-vote efforts complete with walking-around money and employment for loyal Democrats.
"California lawmakers passed a law (Senate Bill 35) requiring that voter registration be part of the health insurance exchange." California lawmakers, again, passed Senate Bill 35 that requires voter registration be part of the health insurance exchange. Now, you think you're going to the exchange to pick your insurance policy. Guess what? You're gonna get pressured to register to vote, if you're not, and maybe even if you already are. "Last month, Covered California announced $37 million in grants to 48 organizations to build public awareness about the opening of the health exchange on Oct. 1."
In other words, they're treating this as the grand opening of a great shopping center, a great mall. They're doing this to attract all kinds of people. It's a government bureaucracy. It would be no different than if the DMV started running ads to get you to show up.
"Of the 48 organizations that got grants, only a handful are health-care related." For example, Covered California announced $37 million in grants to 48 organizations to build public awareness about the opening of the health care exchange. Now, why in the world would the California NAACP get $600,000? But they did. The California NAACP got $600,000 of Obamacare money, California exchange money, to go door-to-door canvassing and registering voters, and to create presentations at community organizations, presentations about the Democrat Party, presentations about registering and supporting the Democrat Party and its candidates.
"Service Employees International Union, which says its mission is 'economic justice,' received two grants totaling $2 million to make phone calls, robo-calls and go door to door." Now, what in the world does a health exchange need a union going door-to-door for? I'm talking about in the strict structure of these exchanges. Remember, our low-information people have no clue what's gonna hit them here, folks.
You think they know what a health care exchange is? You and I know what it is. It's a place where we're gonna have to go to get our insurance policy. Little do we know that when we show up we're going to be hit with Democrat Party propaganda. Little do we know that the insurance exchanges are gonna be giving money to the NAACP and the Service Employees International Union to go out and do "voter outreach," voter registration drives, show up at community organizing centers.
They're gonna be making robo-calls, phone calls all about getting out the vote. "The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor AFL-CIO got $1 million for door-to-door, one-on-one education and social networking." For what? An insurance policy? "It describes its role as 'engaging in both organizing and political campaigns, electing pro-union and pro-worker candidates.'" That's the AFL-CIO. That's how it describes itself.
So we have the NAACP in California getting 600 grand to go door-to-door to register voters, to do this or that. "Service Employees International Union, which says its mission is "economic justice," received two grants totaling $2 million to make phone calls, robo-calls and go door to door," to the outreach, open community centers, make phone calls, robo-calls, register voters, get them to the polls. The AFL-CIO getting another million. So just in three groups, we're at $3,600,000 from a health exchange to basically gin up support for the Democrat Party.
"Community Health Councils, a California organization with a long history of political activism against fracking, for-profit hospitals, state budget cuts and oil exploration, got $1 million to conduct presentations at community and neighborhood meetings and one-to-one sessions." So health care exchange money for California has been given to a group that opposes fracking, for-profit hospitals, and opposes state budget cuts, opposes oil exploration.
They get a million bucks to "conduct presentations at community and neighborhood meetings" against all of these things. In other words, Community Health Councils, California group, got a million dollars to promote the Democrat Party. The AFL-CIO, $1 million to promote the Democrat Party. The Service Employees International Union, $2 million to promote the Democrat Party. The NAACP, $600,000 to promote the Democrat Party.
It's $910 million total of taxpayer money to the state of California -- and by the way, gonna happen in every state. This is not just California. But you might be asking, "Wait a minute, Rush! Wait a minute! What about getting people actually signed up for health care, insurance policies?" Well, guess what? That has also been assigned to constituencies in the Democrat Party. Basically what's happening is Obamacare's exchanges are being funded, money is being given.
The same people who got stimulus money, folks. You didn't. Your shovel-ready job didn't. Your school didn't. Your road, your bridge, none of those things got it. Your job didn't get it. Democrat loyalists got the money. The same thing is happening with the Obamacare exchanges. Democrat supporting groups are being given millions of dollars to promote the Democrat Party, register Democrat voters, and get them to the polls on Election Day. The purpose? To set up a permanent one-party system in this country.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: The Investor's Business Daily. This story, it's actually an editorial, it's written by Betsy McCaughey. And folks, what's happening with these health care exchanges, again, we're gonna link to this Investor's Business Daily editoral at RushLimbaugh.com and it's gonna be in our Rush in a Hurry. You know what? I don't pitch this enough, but I really should.
We have an e-mail alert that we send out within a half hour of every program, and it's free. All you have to do is go to our website and sign up for it. And there are no strings attached to it. Now, it does have banner advertising in it, but there are no strings. You don't have to sign up for anything else. It's called Rush in a Hurry, and it is a summary with some transcripts and some audio, and it has links to the full website, with full details on everything. But it is a great, comprehensive summary of the highlights, which is everything that happened on this program every day. Millions of people already get it, and you can get it, too. So when I sit here and tell you, "Well, you don't want to miss this IBD editorial," if you're subscriber to Rush in a Hurry, it automatically comes to whatever e-mail address you submit, and the link to it will be right there about 30 minutes after the program.
Now, we are able to update our website on the fly now because of advancements in website technology. We used to have to wait 'til six o'clock Eastern time every day to have the whole site up. You had to do it all at once and then go live with it. But now we can supplement it as we go, update it as we go. So the Rush in a Hurry is an absolutely great way -- if you haven't had a chance to listen to the program on a particular day, you get the Rush in a Hurry, two things are gonna happen. You're gonna know what happened. You're gonna wish that you had been near a radio. But it is really well done. It is done with html graphics. It's not just a straight, flat text e-mail. It is a miniature website into itself in an e-mail. All you have to do to get it is go to RushLimbaugh.com and sign up for Rush in a Hurry. That's what it's called.
Now, the Investor's Business Daily editorial written by Betsy McCaughey details what the health care exchanges in Obamacare really are about. And she focuses on California because they're getting $910 million to set up the exchanges in California. Now, the exchanges, folks, are for one purpose and that's for you to go get your health care insurance. Every American, if you don't get your health care from your employer, you're gonna have to go to one of these exchanges to get it. It's a marketplace, it's a clearinghouse, theoretically. It's a catalog. You go pick the policy that you want based on what you want to pay -- they're all gonna be expensive. But it turns out these exchanges are just being used for Democrat Party outreach. I've detailed how.
The NAACP is getting $600,000 from the California exchange. The AFL-CIO is getting $1 million. The Service Employees International Union is getting $2 million. And for what? To go door-to-door, to register voters, to show up at community centers and make presentations on the Democrat Party and sell the Democrat Party agenda. A group called Community Health Councils, which is a California bunch that opposes fracking, for-profit hospitals, state budget cuts and oil exploration, got $1 million to conduct presentations at community and neighborhood meetings. "California's actual enrollment process is also outsourced to employees of community organizations, unions and health clinics."
So when you show up to get your insurance at a California exchange, you might be dealing to somebody from the AFL-CIO. You might be dealing with somebody from the Service Employees International Union. Planned Parenthood is trying to get in on some of this money. Planned Parenthood wants some exchange money to promote their cause, which is abortion. It's another slush fund, folks. The health care exchanges are slush funds just like the stimulus bill was.
California's Democrat controlled legislature does not want voters to know who exactly is getting close to $200 million in outreach funding, so they passed a law that creates an exception to the state's open records law. A grand total of $200 million in Democrat Party outreach will be allocated from the $910 million to set up the exchanges. That's the brunt of it, but I tell you, you need to see the whole thing. And we'll link to it at RushLimbaugh.com.
Washington Examiner: "The popularity of Obamacare has crashed to its lowest level in nearly two years, according to a new Kaiser Family Foundation poll." Thirty-five percent support Obamacare. "Kaiser's monthly tracking poll found that just 35 percent have a favorable view of the health reform being put into place Jan. 1 while 43 percent view it unfavorably. The favorability rating of Obamacare has been worse only once, in October 2011, when it fell to 34 percent." So it's heading south.
This is a story about the death panel. "An Obamacare Board Answerable to No One." A story from the Wall Street Journal about death panels. It's a disaster. Immigration reform, it's a disaster. This, Obamacare, is a disaster, folks. No other way to describe it.
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RUSH: About these health care exchanges, let me present to you a picture. Hypothetically, Obamacare is implemented, and along the way, guess what? Amnesty happens, the Gang of Eight bill is passed, and all of a sudden we've got 11 million people now that we're gonna put on a pathway to citizenship. Who's gonna be in charge of it? Obama, the Democrat Party will be with pamphlets, ads on TV and in publications, about how to go to the pathway to citizenship.
The pathway to citizenship's gonna take 'em right to a health care exchange. They're gonna need health care. They're gonna be sent right to an exchange where they're gonna be hit up by unions to become Democrats. That's the first thing that's gonna happen to these illegals! Once we put 'em on the pathway, they're gonna be met on the path by the nearest union worker with a Democrat voter registration form. That's exactly how this is gonna happen.
After the IBD article, Limbaugh and Hannity also featured discussions of the above article on their radio shows and Dr. Ben Carson, who is working on an alternative solution to ObamaCare and our present healthcare system, was a guest on Cavuto. Huckabee featured three doctors on his weekly Fox TV show over the weekend who have found their own solutions to circumvent ObamaCare and the ObamaCare exchanges.
Everything done by this administration is connected and part of a greater agenda… an agenda to control the US economy, create a one party system, and to control everything about our lives, a fundamental transformation of America. Our job is to connect the dots… and then start disconnecting them.
The Blaze: Dr. Benjamin Carson speaks during the National Prayer Breakfast at the Washington Hilton February 7, 2013 in Washington, DC. U.S. President Barack Obama reportedly used the occasion to call for unity and common ground Washington politics. Credit: Getty Images
With President Barack Obama sitting just feet away, Dr. Benjamin Carson stood up for conservative principles in his speech at Thursday’s National Prayer Breakfast, discussing the national debt, political correctness and even healthcare. Readers loved his speech so much that TheBlaze’s story on it went viral.
On Friday, Carson appeared on Fox News’ “Hannity” to explain why he felt compelled to speak out against the big government policies endorsed by Obama, in front of Obama.
Carson, a renown neurosurgeon, said the response to his speech has been “overwhelmingly” positive. However, he argued he didn’t make a conservative argument, but rather a “logical” and “common-sense” one.
“I don’t know where we left our brains,” he told host Sean Hannity.
Carson went on to talk about his life story, saying he grew up in a single parent home in a poverty-stricken area. He said his mother “refused to be a victim” and “never felt sorry for herself,” despite only having a third grade education.
Regarding his comments on political correctness, the neurosurgeon emphasized the importance of “freedom of speech and freedom of expression” in the United States.
“And yet, we have imposed upon people restrictions on what they say, on what they can think. The media, I think is the largest proponent of this,” he explained.
He lambasted the media’s outrage at Brent Musburger’s flattering comments about Alabama beauty queen Katherine Webb during the BCS National Championship.
In the second portion of his interview with Hannity, Carson argued he didn’t craft his message based on who was going to be in attendance. In other words, wasn’t trying to stick it to Obama in his speech.
“It really didn’t matter who I was sitting in front of, because I always pray before I give a speech and I ask God to give me the right things to say. And I think that it’s very rare these days for people to speak the truth,” he said. “Meanwhile, the fabric of our nation is being destroyed.
One of the “real dangers” facing America, according to Carson, is the fact that people don’t know “anything” about things like history or technology. “They don’t think for themselves,” he added.
Seizing upon what many of Carson’s supporters are probably wondering, Hannity asked him if he would ever consider running for president. The doctor did not it rule out, but said God would have to “grab him by the collar and make him do it.”
If nothing else, the look on Obama's face as he SUFFERS through the brilliance of Dr. Ben Carson is priceless! Dr. Carson takes shot after shot at Obama while Obama is forced to sit and listen. Dr. Ben Carson is the REAL deal, he (unlike Obama) was raised by a single mother in the ghetto's of Detroit. Obama, on the other hand, lived a pretty comfortable lifestyle. Dr. Ben Carson doesn't use his color of skin to his advantage (which is not the Obama way) and he doesn't think we should "punish" those who have earned their successes by taking from them and giving to others who have not. After watching this video in it's entirety, I am quite sure President and Mrs. Obama would have preferred to be sitting in a dental chair having a ROOT CANAL!
Rush Limbaugh Show:
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RUSH: As for Obama, he went to the National Prayer Breakfast today. I was reading a blog, the White House Dossier, a guy who used to be part of the White House press corps. Keith Koffler is his name. I didn't see Obama at the prayer breakfast today, but he said Obama was barely awake. You know, Obama doesn't show until ten o'clock in the morning. He's a nighthawk. He's a night owl. Obama stays up late and he doesn't get up early. So this guy's describing Obama at the prayer breakfast as having heavy eyelids and chewing Nicorette to deal with his nicotine addiction. He was openly chewing gum and wiping his eyes as though trying to remove the morning crustiness.
You ever have that happen to you, the morning crustiness in your eye and have to wipe that out?
That's what he described Obama as doing. Koffler said Obama's remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast were perfunctory and listless, as though he really didn't want to be there but has to do this kind of thing. So we have some sound bites from this. Let's go to 'em right now. This is Obama in Washington at the National Prayer Breakfast. Now, it didn't start 'til something like ten or 10:30 but apparently he had to get up early. He had to be somewhere at 7:30, I guess, for the actual breakfast itself. In the White House Dossier piece, Keith Koffler makes the point that -- well, I inferred from his piece that -- Obama's not out of bed by then.
So he was not entirely cogent. He just wasn't there. Let's give a listen. We have two sound bites of Obama.
OBAMA: It is always just a wonderful event.
RUSH: (snoring)
OBAMA: But I do worry sometimes that as soon as we leave the prayer breakfast, everything we've been talkin' about --
RUSH: (snoring)
OBAMA: -- the whole time of the prayer breakfast --
RUSH: (snoring)
OBAMA: -- seems to be forgotten on the same day of the prayer breakfast.
AUDIENCE: (smattering of laughter)
OBAMA: I mean --
RUSH: (snoring)
OBAMA: -- you'd like to think that that the shelf life wasn't so short! I go back to the Oval Office (snickers), and I start watching the cable news networks, and it's like we didn't pray.
RUSH: This is unreal.
I love this. So prayer doesn't work, and this proves it.
Obama goes to the prayer breakfast, and everybody else goes to the prayer breakfast. It's a wonderful event. And it's all about him, you see. The National Prayer Breakfast... (interruption) Oh, don't believe that when he says he doesn't watch cable news. He watches it, and he has people assigned to watch it, just like I do. (Obama interpretation) "It's a wonderful event, the National Prayer Breakfast. It's always about me every year, and I enjoy coming for that reason, but I do worry sometimes that as soon as we leave the prayer breakfast, everything we've been talking about the whole prayer breakfast seems to be forgotten, on the same day of the prayer breakfast.
"I mean, you'd like to think that the shelf life of the prayer wasn't short. I go back to the Oval Office, and I start watching cable news, and it's like we didn't pray at all." So God's not listening. (interruption) Well, I think everybody else is praying to Obama, but gods don't pray. They sit there and listen to the prayers. But, anyway, can you imagine any other president ripping prayer, even in a joke way? (Obama impression) "Well, we all come up here and -- and we pray, and (chuckling) it doesn't even work! It doesn't even last the whole day. I go back to White House, turn on TV, and I'm being criticized. The National Prayer Breakfast is all about Obama. Here's the second sound bite...
OBAMA: That's what I thought of as I took the oath of office a few weeks ago and touched those Bibles: The comfort that Scripture gave Lincoln and King. Most of all I thought about their humility. Let us retain that humility not just during this hour, but for every hour, and let me suggest that those of us with the most power and influence need to be the most humble.
RUSH: Right. Like right before you decide to pick somebody off the Kill List and launch the drone. Right! Now, the next speaker is the Johns Hopkins Hospital Pediatric Neurosurgery director, Dr. Benjamin Carson, and this guy rips Obamaism. He ripped into Obamaism at the prayer breakfast with Obama sitting there.
CARSON: Well, some people say, they say, "Well, that's not fair because it doesn't hurt the guy who made $10 billion as much as the guy who made ten." Where does it say you have to hurt the guy? He just put a billion dollars in the pot!
AUDIENCE: (applause)
CARSON: You know, we don't need to hurt him. It's that kind of thinking...
AUDIENCE: (applause)
CARSON: It's that kind of thinking that has resulted in 602 banks in the Cayman Islands. That money needs to be back here, building our infrastructure and creating jobs.
RUSH: Whoa! Right on. Did you hear that? This guy is talking to Obama. Obama's sitting there, and Dr. Carson is saying, "People say... 'Well, that's not fair because it doesn't hurt the guy who made $10 billion as much as the guy who made ten.' Where does it say you have to hurt the guy? He just put a billion dollars in the pot!" So this neurosurgeon is speaking out in favor of the 1%, the 5%, the 10% who are actually paying the freight in this country via income taxes. They're the ones actually paying the freight. What do we gotta hurt 'em for? I mean, they're already putting money in the pot. Why do we gotta hurt 'em?
He's exactly right. And then he says: You want to know why we got 602 banks in the Caymans with American money? Because they're running away. They don't want to be hurt.
I love this guy. He wasn't finished, either.
CARSON: Here's my solution: When a person is born, give him a birth certificate, an electronic medical record, and a health savings account to which money can be contributed -- pretax -- from the time you're born 'til the time you die. When you die, you can pass it on to your family members, so that when you're 85 years old and you got six diseases, you're not trying to spend up everything. You're happy to pass it on and there's nobody talking about death panels.
AUDIENCE: (laughter and applause)
CARSON: Number one. And also, for the people who were indigent who don't have any money we can make contributions to their HSA each month because we already have this huge pot of money. Instead of sending it to some bureaucracy, let's put it in their HSAs. Now they have some control over their own health care.
RUSH: That is Dr. Benjamin Carson, who is the Johns Hopkins Hospital Pediatric Neurosurgery director, and he has given his recipe there for a health care system the exact opposite of Obamacare. This is at the National Prayer Breakfast today. So you see, these people are out there, and they're willing to speak up. They need to be encouraged.
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RUSH: Okay, my friends, I want to spend some time here, just a few minutes, on Dr. Benjamin Carson. You don't hear people speak this way. The Republicans don't speak this way to Obama. They don't speak this way about Obama's policies. Here you have the guy who's head of neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital at the National Prayer Breakfast. He says, "People say... 'Well, that's not fair because it doesn't hurt the guy who made $10 billion as much as the guy who made ten.' Where does it say you have to hurt the guy? He just put a billion dollars in the pot!" The guy's paying the freight. What's he done?
His solution to health care: "When a person is born, give him a birth certificate, an electronic medical record, and a health savings account to which money can be contributed -- pretax -- from the time you're born 'til the time you die." We're already spending this money and more anyway. He's simply talking about reallocating resources. Put it in the hands of the people who are going to spend it. Put them in charge of their own health care. They build it up while they're young, while they're children. A nest egg gets built in their health savings accounts. It's pretax. It's put in this account from the time you're born 'til the time you die.
It's the equivalent of what would be spent on you in other forms -- and when you die, whatever you haven't used, you can pass on to your family members. Do with it what you want. You can pass it on. You can make it part of your estate. But you are in charge of your health care. You are in charge of how much you spend on it and how much you get and where you go. This reintroduces competition. This reintroduces market forces. This is what brings costs down. So in 43 seconds, the director of neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins gave the answer to Obamacare.
In 43 seconds.
It's not 2700 pages, and it doesn't enlarge the government.
It doesn't hire 16,000 IRS agents, and it covers everybody -- and there would probably be money left over after all of this.
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RUSH: I'm gonna take advantage of the occasion of these comments by Dr. Benjamin Carson to explain what a health savings account is to people who may not know. Because, you know, we have constant audience expansion and audience growth here. Since the election -- well, even prior to that, but -- there are people listening here for the first time ever or they've been listening for a year or two. So, of course, they haven't heard everything that you have if you've been here for the whole 20, 25 years.
But this is really profound what this man said at the National Prayer Breakfast. Now, let's put Obamacare in Column A and just briefly review. It has 2700 pages. The federal government is empowered to eventually make every health care decision for every American. The older Americans get, the less likely the government will authorize spending money to treat them, particularly if they have terminal diseases.
That's because the government will determine that it's not worth the money. If somebody is near the life expectancy, and they have a debilitating disease, the government will decide it's not worth it. This is in Obamacare. The term "death panel" isn't, but that's how it works out. This is all in Obamacare. It's "as the secretary of Health and Human Services shall determine." There is a board. There is a panel of people.
We don't know who it's gonna be, but there is a panel of people who will make decisions on the allocation of health care money which is all gonna come from government. That's eventually, when this is fully implemented. If your parent or grandparent comes down with a very bad disease late in life, the government may decide it makes no sense to spend the money in treating that disease because the expected number of years left in that person's life is very few.
They might think we can spend that money elsewhere on other people or on young people who might be more productive. Now, in a free society, this shouldn't happen. You need to be in charge, just like when you go rent a hotel room. You buy hotel room where you want, where you can afford, where you want to stay. Same thing with food, same thing with a car, same thing with anything else you buy. You buy it based on what you can afford, based on what you want.
Of course the American dream is that you continue to work hard and try to improve your standard of living so that you can afford better and more things for you and your family as you go on through life. That's what's fundamentally changed, and is in the process of fundamentally changing in our country. Imagine if you had to go to the government for a hotel room. Imagine if you had to go to the government for your food or for your telephone service or anything else, be it a need or a desire.
The fact that governments, state and federal, are involved in so much of the health care system is he reason why the price has skyrocketed. There isn't any competition per se. You're not in charge, and the consumer needs to be in charge of what is spent by that consumer for that consumer. That causes and creates competition for that consumer's dollar, and that's how prices are kept affordable. That doesn't exist in health care today.
So the Obamacare plan is 2700 pages with a panel that will determine who gets treated and who doesn't. There are 16,000 new IRS agents to determine whether or not you're complying with the law by either having an insurance policy or paying a fine or a penalty if you don't. Virtually every aspect of your health care, the portion of your life dealing with health care is going to be administered by and monitored by government, with you having nothing to do with it -- and that just scratches the surface.
Remember the woman who appeared...? Well, you may not remember. ABC, about three years ago, did a primetime special with the president the East Room of the White House where the president sought to explain his health care plan. There were American citizens in the audience. A woman stood up (an American citizen, folks) and actually asked the president of the United States -- not her doctor, not a family member, but the president of the United States (summarized) -- "Sir, what about my 100-year-old mother?
"She has a huge will to live, she's got a great spirit, but she needs a pacemaker. Will you factor things like spirit and the will to live in determining whether people like my mother will get a pacemaker?" Why is a citizen asking the president of the United States if her mother can have a medical procedure? Sometimes I think I'm the only one who thought that obscene. Well, the president stood up and answered it. He put a smile on his face and said, "No, we can't take things into account like will to live and spirit.
"We just can't do that. There are just gonna be times," the president said to this woman, "where the best thing we can do is just give your mother a pill and let her try to enjoy her remaining days." The show ended and people discussed it as though nothing offensive had happened. This doesn't it happen in a free country. This doesn't happen in the United States of five years ago! This doesn't happen.
The president of the United States doesn't conduct a health care seminar in the White House with citizens asking if he will permit their family members to live, if he will permit their family members to be treated medically! This was before Obamacare was signed into law. Well, now it's been signed into law and it's in the process of implementing. Now we've been told the IRS that the cheapest -- the cheapest -- mandatory health care plan for a family of four starting in 2016 or 2018, whenever this is fully implemented, will be between $16,000 and $20,000 a year.
The cheapest mandatory plan! If you don't have one, you have to pay a penalty. Whether you have health insurance or not, it's gonna cost you. So that's, briefly, what we have at present. This is what has been passed by Congress and signed into law, and this is what's being implemented. This and many other horror stories. So then we have Dr. Benjamin Carson who, again, spoke today at the National Prayer Breakfast. He is the Johns Hopkins Hospital Pediatric Neurosurgery director. He's got an entirely different idea. Play sound bite nine again. Let's hear it in his words.
This is his alternative to Obamacare.
CARSON: Here's my solution: When a person is born, give him a birth certificate, an electronic medical record, and a health savings account to which money can be contributed -- pretax -- from the time you're born 'til the time you die. When you die, you can pass it on to your family members, so that when you're 85 years old and you got six diseases, you're not trying to spend up everything. You're happy to pass it on and there's nobody talking about death panels.
AUDIENCE: (laughter and applause)
CARSON: Number one. And also, for the people who were indigent who don't have any money, we can make contributions to their HSA each month because we already have this huge pot of money. Instead of sending it to some bureaucracy, let's put it in their HSAs. Now they have some control over their own health care.
RUSH: Now, here's the point. What is a health savings account? Many of you in the audience already know, and I'm gonna ask you to indulge me as I try to explain them to people in the audience who don't know. Pretty much what Dr. Carson said. When you're born, a bank account -- look at it that way. When you're born, a bank account is started in your name. You get a birth certificate, and you get a medical card and a health savings account. Money is contributed pretax, from the time you're born until you die. They say, "Where do we get the money?"
We simply shift from all of the money that's being spent on health care now by governments, and we shift it to the people, to you. We put it in a bank account for you. Everybody gets one. Health care spending is 53% of GDP, or it's heading in that direction. We're spending $3.5 trillion dollars every year in this country, $1.3 trillion of which we don't even have. So we take 40, 50% of that and we allocate it to the people. It's theirs in the first place. They earned it. Your parents earned it if you don't have enough to start the health savings account. You obviously don't when you're an infant. But it grows.
You then need to go to the doctor, you then need medical treatment, you've got a health savings, you have a savings accounts, you've got a bank account with money in it that otherwise would go to insurance companies or go to the government or wherever else. But it's yours. You spend it as you need it, when medical events come up. Now, we're talking in this case, it's about standard, ordinary operating procedure doctor visits.
We're not talking about catastrophic injuries. Those are handled by insurance and would continue to be. But every day commonplace doctor visits, hospital treatments, and so forth, are handled by your health savings accounts. And whatever you don't spend, you get to keep and use however you wish, thereby motivating you to do two things: Not spend it all on medicine, because people are spending a lot more on their health than they actually need to be. And the second thing is you'll help create competition among medical providers, among doctors, among hospitals, among MRI testing centers, to get your business. They'll have to have a price that's attractive to you, just like anybody else trying to sell you anything.
There might even be sales someday on health care, if this system were ever implemented. But the point is you're in charge of it. And until we reach the point where the consumer has a direct relationship with his health care in terms of cost and expense, we're never gonna get costs down. In 43 seconds, Dr. Carson here gave the opposite to Obamacare and a way that would work, by putting every person in charge of his or her health care.
Now, some people might not want that responsibility, and that's what people like Obama and the Democrats bank on. But a health savings account is just money that's already being spent on health care and health insurance being reallocated, transferred, if you will, back to you. It was yours in the first place anyway. You earned it. That's the only way the government ever got it. You or your parents earned it. They don't have a dime without taking it from somebody first or borrowing it or printing it. This plan just, you keep your money. It's in an account where you use it for medical care. What you don't use is yours to do with as you wish, include pass on to your kids when you die.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We got Jody from Madison, Wisconsin. Jody, great to have you here. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Oh, what a pleasure to talk to you. I've been listening to you since the eighties, and I never called you before, but I'm telling you, when you had that sound bite on with Dr. Carson, I almost dropped my jaw. And I did run in and I called Dr. Carson and told him he's my hero. It's amazing. I've been saying the same thing for years, ever since this health care junk coming out and explaining to people how HSAs would have solved all of the problems. Not only that, just think of how wages would increase, and employment, 'cause it's no longer on the backs of the employer. I just can't tell you how astounded I was today to hear some sanity out of a human being.
RUSH: Look, I realize this is extremely encouraging. It's uplifting to know that, A, there's somebody out there who understands and knows this, but even more than that, that's willing to say it --
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: -- to Obama's face. This man said it while Obama's sitting there. Now, this is easy for me to say, but I'm gonna tell you something. This is the kind of stuff the Republican Party needs to be saying. This is the kind of stuff the Republican Party should have been saying for the past four years. Now, I know they tried various times and places to talk about health savings accounts, but their plan was still the government at the center of everything. That's what I mean by the Democrats create an agenda item, the Republicans say, "Oh, okay, is that what we're talking about today? Okay, national health care? Well, we don't entirely believe in that, so we'll come up with an alternative," but it's still an agenda set by the Democrats.
What's remarkable about Dr. Carson. Here's my solution. A person's born. He gets a health savings account to which money can be contributed pretax. Think of it as a 401(k) for health care. You put as much money in it as you want and, by the way, we'll supplant that because there's money being spent on your behalf, theoretically, in health care by the government, just reallocate it. But in 43 seconds the man had a free market based solution to the problem that was understandable and inspiring. And it does make you say, it does make you ask, "Where's this been for the last four years? Where has been the leadership articulating this kind of thing?"
"Service Employees International Union, which says its mission is 'economic justice,' received two grants totaling $2 million to make phone calls, robo-calls and go door to door." Now, what in the world does a health exchange need a union going door-to-door for? I'm talking about in the strict structure of these exchanges. Remember, our low-information people have no clue what's gonna hit them here, folks. 
