If You Have To Ask You Can't Afford It

Looking back over the last 6 months or so, I find that Rush, surprisingly, has a big problem with the government helping people with their prescription drug needs. Whoda thunk?

Back on March 17th, he had this to say:

Rosemarie Lowry, sixty-seven, of Braintree, who lives on less than 800 dollars a month, and takes medications for everything from high blood pressure to depression, said she was harassed by a Walgreen's pharmacy in Quincy when she said she couldn't afford her medicare copayments. She said the pharmacy gave her one pill from each of her ten prescriptions and told her she'd get her full thirty-day supply if she came back with the copayment.

The pill-a-day-approach continued for several days until the pharmacy just cut her off. At that point, Lowry said, she borrowed the twenty dollar copayment from a friend and got her medicine. "I need my prescription," she said, "It's not like I'm taking the kills-- pills-- because I like taking pills."

So we got a little game going on here. The copayment was fifty cents. They raised it to two bucks, but there is an out because there is a federal law: pharmacies must fill prescription even if the patient says they can't afford the copayment. My friends, can I just tell you the way this is too--

Copayment of two dollars means that these drugs are essentially free! Two bucks! Interesting that they -- don't ask this lady if she has any family members who could pay the two bucks. But -- even apart from that, in addition to Medicaid, the major drug companies offer compassionate care programs for those who can demonstrate they can't afford their medicines.

And these companies spend billion dollar -- billions of dollars a year on, in - in disbursing free drugs in hardship cases like this. So you come up with a law that says "uh [mumbles] if somebody says they can't afford a copayment, you've got to give them medicine anyway." So, the copayment goes up from fifty cants to two bucks, and all the patients have to do is say they can't afford it.

Can't afford two bucks? I'm telling you -- this -- this is like, free drugs!

Two bucks. It's just -- you -- you think the welfare system hasn't gotten out of hand? You think the sense of entitlement in this country hasn't gotten out of hand? What do you mean, I'm out of touch? Don't give me this out of touch. You mean to tell me that I -- because I can afford two bucks, I'm out of touch. Is that what out of touch means now? Because I can afford two bucks? Don't tell me this. I hear this out of touch business all too often. And it's a bogus charge.

And it's -- this is my point. This is how ridiculous this is getting. This is how serious the entitlement mentality in this country has gotten. People -- [unintelligible] -- two bucks copayment! That's all it is. For a prescipt -- two dollars. Well, can you buy a can of dog food for two dollars? You can't even say that I am faced with the choice
here of dog food or my prescription copayment. Cause dog food's more expensive than two bucks! We don't have dog food copays yet, but I'll bet ya to hell they're coming.

Dog food copays, just so Democrats'll have some hardship cases to demonstrate how it is the country doesn't care anymore about the seasoned citizens of America. Two bucks! Out of touch, my sizeable derriere. You know, [taps papers on console] [sighs] unbelievable. I'm -- I don't know what John Kerry's done. John Kerry's trying to figure out whether he's Irish or Jewish today. You know, it's saint Patrick's day today, and he's got a big identity crisis he's facing.

I don't know what John Kerry's doing about the two dollar copay, for crying out loud. [sighs] But, you see folks. This is -- what I mean. This is where this stuff starts. People are not now even willing to fork up two measly -- and don't give me this fixed income -- two bucks! Two bucks! It's -- it's essentially -- this is nothing!


You'd certainly never guess he was fucked up out of his mind on narcotics. Why, he makes just perfect sense...

And you can bet that right after this little koo-koo rant they cut to commercial and Rush immediately swallowed a fistfull of 20-dollar-a-piece little blue babies and washed them down with a frosty Pina Colada Slim Fast. No wonder he was pissed. Just the thought of $2.00 a pill drove him to madness.

See, Rush knows from prescription drug hardship. The National Enquirer published some of his alleged e-mails in which he was very, very afraid that he wasn't going to be able to get his "medicine" either.

100=2.5 to 3 days of the little blues[oxycontin] You know how this stuff works...the more you get used to the more it takes. But, I will try and cut down to help out. But remember, this is only for a little over two more weeks. Just two weeks....I understand your challenge and will do all I can to help. But I kind of want to go out with a bang if you get my drift. Hee hee hee.


He was going into rehab in two weeks.

Poor Rush. See, he deserved his "medicine" because he had a 250 million dollar contract to spew bile all over the airwaves condemning old people for not being able to afford their life-saving blood pressure medication. And, sometimes even that wasn't enough.

Damn. It's a sad, sad day when a fucked-up, filthy rich, Republican junkie propagandist has to lower himself in front of the help by promising to cut back on his Oxy just to keep his monkey fed. What's this world coming to?