Glenn has really mellowed over the years, here is a classic Get Off My Phone (GOMP) moment from 2003... |
GLENN: 888-727-BECK, 888-727-BECK. Let's go to Rich in Atlanta. Hello, Rich.
CALLER: Hey, Glenn, I'm calling about two things. One, I think what you're doing for the border patrol agents who are in jail, I think that's great. I followed the story both on your program and on Lou Dobbs' program and I think it's terrible that that's happened to these families. One thing I wanted to point out, too, was and you had the families on the radio call in about an hour ago. Both of them have issues with their kids that are medical issues and you talked about how because they didn't have medical insurance it wiped out their life savings. And my point is if you don't have health coverage in this country, there's some type of safety net for people who don't have insurance otherwise, would be better off --
GLENN: Yeah, we do have -- excuse me. We do have that. It's called Medicare and Medicaid. We do have that.
CALLER: But families have to give away all their possessions to qualify for Medicaid.
GLENN: Because that is the way that -- it should be, quite honestly, that if you are a dire, dire situation, then you can come to the government as your very last resort. Just in this situation they do have people that can help them out. Now, they're in -- there's two families now in dire situations. They've made it for, what, two years on their own? They've made it. Other people, the communities rallied around them, their friends, their family. Some of them were living with their -- one of the families, living with their mother for a while. That's the way it's supposed to happen. But this family, these two families I believe have been targeted. They have been targeted unjustly. That is the real, the real problem with this story. These guys have been targeted unjustly. And now to sick the IRS on them. It's just -- no, it's classy. It's really, really classy.
CALLER: I think that is -- my point was if you had universal health coverage, this mother wouldn't have to be going to the hospital to beg and scream for help for these kids.
GLENN: And if you had universal health coverage, you would also have some of the worst health coverage because we are --
CALLER: That's not accurate, Glenn, they have health coverage in England and if France --
GLENN: Excuse me, Rich, do you really want to -- Rich! Do you really want to get into the healthcare of France? By the way, sir, you are paying outrageous prices for healthcare in France and then on top of it 70% of the population also has to have private healthcare insurance to cover the stuff you can't get from the government! So please don't come on with your bullcrap universal healthcare socialist plans that don't work. You tell me, Rich, why there are cases in the Canadian Supreme Court right now, people fighting because the government want give them healthcare. You tell me, Rich, about the great stories that are happening in England right now if you are not a producer. If you are somebody who is overage, you are not getting kidney dialysis, you are not getting expensive healthcare coverage because you no longer produce! So I mean, you want to talk about healthcare, let's talk about the wonderful system of the 12-hour wait in hospitals now in London. 12 hours people are waiting to get any kind of healthcare. So the government said "That's unreasonable; you can't do that. You can't do that. This is government healthcare. You should have government healthcare. You should be able to see a doctor within three hours." So what did they do to fix it? Now if you call an ambulance and you get into an ambulance, they cannot keep you waiting for a doctor for more than three hours. So now they haul your butt to the hospital in an ambulance where you will sit in an ambulance for nine hours and then they will say, "Oh, the doctor's about to see you," and then put you in under three hours in the waiting room. It is a shell game, sir, and if you really want to know the truth, all you have to do is read the papers out of England and when you start reading the papers out of England and see the government suddenly saying, "You know, we need to privatize some of these hospitals." Wait a minute, isn't that privatization, isn't that a damn, a damning statement on socialized medicine? "Oh, no, no, we just think there are some things that the private sector can do to help out the..." it's bullcrap. It's socialism. It is bad healthcare. And if you really want to know the facts, sir, they're there. But you could just give me the socialist agenda. Thanks for calling. Get off my phone. Oh, jeez.
You know, here's another thing. You know the -- you know one of the founding members of Greenpeace, one of the founding members of Greenpeace -- got to have Greenpeace. Got to do it. Got to do it. Then they started -- they decided that they wanted to ban chlorine. It's on the periodic table of elements. Man's not made -- it's not like a Dow Chemical. Chlorine. It's an element. "We've got to ban it." You can't ban an element! We've got to ban it. He left. You're crazy. You're crazy. What are you trying to do? You can't change the laws of the universe. "Yes, we can." You're nuts; bye-bye. The guy who first said, "Global warming, global warming, global warming, global warming, we've got to pay attention to global warming," nobody will talk to him in the environmental movement anymore. He's a pariah. Why? Because there's one clean energy. It's called nuclear energy. No! We can't have any common sense. Global warming, it's so much better if we have no energy.
How many people, how many people do you read about in your beloved Europe, that died in the heat wave? Why? Because they didn't have air conditioning. They died in the heat wave. How many people do we hear about that are freezing to death in the cold? Yeah, let's not get any more oil for heating. Let's not have any more nuclear power plants to make sure people can stay warm or cold at the appropriate times. No. Let's just worry about the planet. You tell me. Every single one of these crazy ideas, the people who started them are off. Your beloved healthcare in Canada. One of the guys who started it is now against it. You want to -- you want to know the truth? The truth is out there. But nobody will do it.
You know there's a story today that is going around now about Barack Obama, saying that I have become a symbol of American traditions. First, first glance at this is, you've got to be kidding me. This guy is the biggest egomaniac on the planet. But then you actually read it in context. That's not what he's saying. What he's saying is the crowds are not coming for me. The crowds are coming for an image. The crowds are coming -- this should scare the crap out of you. The crowds are coming for a dream. And they're just putting that dream in me. Wow, Obama, I didn't think you got it. You do. Nobody is listening to what he has to say. It's dream, it's hope, it's change. It's the idea we can be a better person. But Ronald Reagan actually told us how to do it! He's not. It's not about him. He is the unnamed Democrat or the unnamed Republican that everybody always says, "Oh, yeah, well, I'd vote for the unnamed Democrat because he's great." Nobody's actually looking at this guy.