RUSH: The president's addressing the nation, ladies and gentlemen, on how he's gonna play dictator again and fix his health care problem. It was supposed to start exactly a half hour ago. He just started three minutes ago, opening up on the Philippines. He finished his remarks on the Philippines right as this program began. So we're gonna JIP it. Here's the president playing dictator.
OBAMA: -- the 1.5 million people. Of those 1.5 million people, 106,000 of them have successfully signed up to get covered. Another 396,000 have the ability to gain access to Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. That's been less reported on, but it shouldn't be. Americans who are having a difficult time, who are poor, many of them working, may have a disability --
RUSH: Folks, we know what he's gonna propose here. We're just doing this because I know the affiliates want to carry this stuff, so -- (crosstalk)
OBAMA: -- later today I'll be in Ohio where Governor Kasich, a Republican, has expanded Medicare under the Affordable Care Act --
RUSH: I can tell you what he's gonna do.
OBAMA: -- 275,000 Ohioans will ultimately be better off because of it. And if every governor followed suit, another 5.4 million Americans could gain access to health care next year. So, the bottom line is in just one month, despite all the problems that we've seen with the website, more than 500,000 Americans could know the security of health care by January 1st.
RUSH: And they've just been shafted based on what you're gonna propose here in a minute.
OBAMA: -- and it's significant.
RUSH: Five hundred thousand is significant?
OBAMA: That still leaves about one million Americans who successfully made it through the website, not qualified by insurance, but haven't picked a plan yet. And there's no question that if the website were working as it's supposed to, that number would be much higher --
RUSH: No.
OBAMA: -- of people who've actually enrolled.
RUSH: Not true.
OBAMA: So that's problem number one.
RUSH: People are shocked at what they found there.
OBAMA: Making sure the website is working the way it's supposed to. It's gotten a lot better over the last few weeks than it was on the first day, but we're working 24/7 to get it working for the vast majority of Americans.
RUSH: Can I ask a question here? Why would anybody believe what he says after the big lie about being able to keep -- (crosstalk)
OBAMA: -- concerns Americans who receive letters from their insurers that they may be losing the plans they bought in the old individual market --
RUSH: Yeah.
OBAMA: -- often because they no longer meet the law's requirements to cover basic benefits like prescription drugs or doctors visits. Now, as I indicated earlier, I completely get how upsetting this can be for a lot of Americans, particularly after assurances they heard from me that, if they had a plan that they liked, they could keep it. And to those Americans, I hear you loud and clear. I said that I would do everything we can to fix this problem, and today I'm offering an idea that will help do it. Already people who have plan that predate the Affordable Care Act can keep those plans if they haven't changed. That was already in the law. That's what's called a "grandfather clause." It was included in the law.
RUSH: Still continuing the lie, folks. (crosstalk)
OBAMA: -- to people whose plans have changed since the law took effect, and to people who bought plans since the law took effect. So state insurance commissioners still have the power to decide what plans can and can't be sold in their states, but the bottom line is insurers can extend current plans that would otherwise be canceled into 2014, and Americans whose plans have been canceled can choose to reenroll in the same kind of plan. We're also requiring insurers who extend current plans to inform their customers about two things: one, that protections -- what protections these renewed plans don't include. Number two, that the marketplace offers new options with better coverage and tax credits that might help you bring down the costs. So if you received one of these letters, I'd encourage you to take a look at the marketplace, even if the website isn't working as smoothly as it should be for everybody yet --
RUSH: There isn't --
OBAMA: -- a plan comparison tool that lets you browse costs for new plans near you is working just fine.
RUSH: Jeez.
OBAMA: Now, this fix won't solve every problem for every person, but it's gonna help a lot of people. Doing more will require more work with Congress. And I've said from the beginning I'm willing to work with Democrats and Republicans to fix problems as they arise.
RUSH: He's lying again.
OBAMA: This is an example of what I was talking about. We can always make this law work better. It is important to understand, though, that the old individual market was not working well. And it's important that we don't pretend that somehow that's a place worth going back to. Too often it works fine as long as you stay healthy. It doesn't work well when you're sick. So year after year Americans were routinely exposed to financial ruin or denied coverage due to minor preexisting conditions or dropped from coverage altogether even if they paid their premiums on time. That's one of the reasons we pursued this reform in the first place. And that's why I will not accept proposals that are just another brazen attempt to undermine or repeal the overall law and drag us back into a broken system.
We will continue to make the case, even the folks who choose to keep their own plans, that they should shop around in the new marketplace because there's a good chance that they'll be able to buy better insurance at lower cost. So we're gonna do everything we can to help the Americans who've received these cancellation notices, but I also want everybody to remember there are still 40 million Americans who don't have health insurance at all. I'm not gonna walk away from 40 million people who have the chance to get health insurance for the first time, and I'm not gonna walk away from something that has helped the cost of health care grow at its slowest rate in 50 years. So we're at the opening weeks of the project to build a better health care system for everybody, a system that will offer real financial security and peace of mind to millions of Americans.
It is a complex process. There are all kinds of challenges. I'm sure there will be additional challenges that come up. And it's important that we're honest and straightforward in terms of when we come up with a problem with these reforms and these laws that we address them. But we've gotta move forward on this. It took a hundred years for us to even get to the point where we could start talking about and implementing a law to make sure everybody's got health insurance. And my pledge to the American people is that we're gonna solve the problems that are there, we're gonna get it right, and the Affordable Care Act is going to work for the American people. So with that I'm gonna take your questions --
RUSH: All right, we're not gonna listen to questions because all of this is gobbledygook. Greetings, my friends, and welcoming. Rush Limbaugh, the EIB Network and the Limbaugh Institute, Advanced Conservative Studies. Great to have you here. Through all of that gobbledygook, let me try to translate what you just heard. You would never know it, if you just listened to all that gobbledygook, you would never know that what Obama is doing is postponing the requirements that are forcing cancellations of your policies until after the elections.
He's doing two things: He's telling the insurance companies, as a dictator would, what they can and can't do or what they must or must not do, or what they have to and don't have to do. He is suggesting, for purely political purposes, that if you have your plan now and you like it, you can keep it for one more year so that you don't get any angrier at Democrats than you are now and vote against them next November.
If your plan has been canceled, he has just ordered the insurance company to make it available to you, so that you can go back and get that plan. The problem is that that plan was canceled precisely because it conflicts with his law, with Obamacare. So he has declared war against the insurance companies here and is making it veritably impossible for them to do business. This is purely political.
All of this gobbledygook is designed to make everybody think that somebody else came along and canceled your plan and he's going to come to the rescue now and give you your plan back, but just for a year -- and he reiterated the original lie. He told you that when he told you that you could keep your plan "unless there's a change in it." He never said "unless there's a change in it," so he's continuing the first lie -- well, the second lie to cover the first lie -- with this announcement today.