Dude, his show has been hugely popular since 1988

The guy is a good entertainer for the talk show genre. It's just that simple. That's why he is so popular.

As far as Clear Channel goes...they need him more than he needs them. There is nobody even close to him in popularity.

He OWNS his company of course. And his show is syndicated across the country. He doesn't work for anybody and makes more money than God.

There has been a huge demand for him to move to Satellite radio for the last 5 years or so but he has refused to do it. I'm sure Sirius is drooling to have him.

As for the advertisers leaving...I think they are doing the right thing. He went over the line with what he said. He just took it too far. And he needs to get a wake up call on that.

That's why he backed down real quick and apologized for it. It was just a stupid move on his part.

But make no mistake...this isn't like some guy on t.v. pissing off a network exec and getting yanked. There is nobody to yank Limbaugh off the air. And if he finds his number of AM channels diminished...others will pick it up soon enough. And if that isn't good enough he'll go to Sirius and make even more money.

He has already publicly apologized. And with hundreds of millions of dollars per year at stake...you better believe he has already had private meetings with the OWNERS of those companies who have dropped him. My gut feeling is that they will quietly begin advertising again with him once this has all went away in a few weeks.

What! LOL!

The "health care provider" would be the girls gynecologist. And if there is even ONE gyno in the United States that doesn't prescribe birth control pills I would be very shocked. :1orglaugh

I've never heard of a woman anywhere in the U.S. that couldn't get cheap birth control pills. Matter of fact they give them away for free at health clinics for poor folks.

The uninformed on the Republican and Dems side of this non-issue is amazing.

Rick Santorum's religious insanity has definitely sparked some shit that is gonna insure Obama's re-election.

They shoulda stuck to the economy and stayed the hell away from trying to tell women what they can or can't do with their bodies.

looks like he gained back all the weight he had lost - hopefully he will die soon

I'm a Limbaugh supporter, but that doesn't mean I support every single comment he has ever made.

I think it's a fair statement that nobody is perfect. But the the critics sure seem to make perfection the standard when applied to conservatives, while allowing plenty of human leeway for liberals.

Oh stop really, this isnt the first fucked up thing he has done. And this girl is a private citizen, she isnt some public figure. and he kept on it for what 4 days straight. so it wasnt a oops.

She never said she was spending $3000 on contraceptives. She said "as you know, contraception can cost a woman over $3000 during lawschool".

She went on to say that the woman with the ovarian cysts who was repeatedly denied insurance coverage for her hormonal birth control medicine that her doctor prescribed to treat her growing tumor/cysts, who was gay by the way, was spending over $100 a month on the medicine herself and finally couldn't afford it. The cyst grew to tennis ball sized and she had to have her ovaries removed. She was 32. Her insurance company INSISTED that she wanted birth control pills for pregnancy prevention even though her doctors had sent in ALL the forms of proof that the insurance company require to prove it was for medical, not prevention purposes. Again, she was gay by the way.

Her testimony should be listened to without the leftist liberal label, but rather a "this is someones child we're talking about" label. Imagine that womans fathers reaction. To deny a proven effective medicine for a woman, someones precious child, while paying for grandpas BONER pills without question is truly perverted.

Amen :thumbsup

I agree...women should be able to get cheap birth control pills.

I don't agree that insurance companies should give them away for free...matter of fact i think that "insurance" should be what it was when I was younger...something you had in case you had a catastrophic illness or accident.

Not something you use everytime you get your birth control pills or some antibiotics for a sinus infection.

I think the govt. should butt out of people's personal lives....BUT if we are going to get more socialistic about health care in this country for the common good...then "insurance" (which is a total fucking scam that keeps all our medical costs and drugs higher than anywhere else in the world) should definitely cover birth control pills.

They are absolutely critical in maintaining a woman's hormone levels at a steady rate.

Last thing we want is a bunch of women who are unbalanced hormonally...it would be a living hell! lol

But seriously, it's 100% in women's best interests for their health.
As an added bonus, we all can get laid. heh-heh

When we were young, the doctor lived on the same block. A very different world.
good read from Harvard business journal not a liberal pub.
http://blogs.hbr.org/hbr/hbreditors/...your_bedr.html
"Between the cost and the controversy, wouldn't it be better if we could sever the albatross of health care from around employers' necks, so they could just go back to focusing on what they do best ? improving their bottom lines? Let's take out the middle-man ? employers ? and simplify our system by admitting what is already evident to so many: between tax breaks, Medicare, and Medicaid, the government already has a heavy hand in providing health insurance. I know European-style systems aren't perfect ? but the perfect, as any executive knows, is the enemy of the good enough. And who could argue that our current system meets even that low bar?"

One of the major problems is that the government system allows for pharmaceutical companies to charge outrageous amounts for different medicines. Some of them are so expensive that the average person couldn't afford them without insurance.

An example. A friend of mine had to go on some kind of medicine that ended up costing $550 for a 30 days supply. With her insurance she paid a $10 co-pay. If she would have had to pay for it out of pocket it would have been pretty difficult for her to afford it month after month.

The whole system is rigged so that if you do have some kind of illness you almost have to carry a full insurance policy otherwise you will go bankrupt. It is crazy.

I see it first hand. I have asthma and since I am self employed I can't get insurance that will cover asthma related stuff. I pay for my medicine out of pocket. I take two different medications. The cheapest I can find one of them is $290 for a 30 day supply and the second one varies between $45 and $55 for about a 3 week supply depending on the brand. I can buy the exact same stuff online for a hell of a lot less. I pay $90 for a 60 days supply of the first medicine and $10 for the second. Exact same medicine. Same manufacturer. The only difference is that it comes from a country where the drug industry doesn't have the leadership in their back pocket and those leaders haven't sold out their citizens.

kane you're absolutely correct.

I found out first hand in 2002 when I had my neck and both arms broken in a bad auto accident. I had no insurance. Hell, I was 40 years old and healthy as a horse (still healthy as a horse by the way).

Ended up in ICU for a month and by the time the medical bills all came in...it was almost a quarter MILLION dollars!!!

Once I was back on my feet I began negotiating with the hospital.

The final meeting happened when they told me that since I didn't have insurance they were going to charge me the "REAL" cost!
I was shocked.

I ended up paying a little over $20,000. And $9,000 separately to the surgeon who saved my life on the operating table.

The hospital administration flat out told me that the prices are jacked up with insurance.

It's a complete and total scam that makes money for the insurance company, the hospital....and funnels back to Washington D.C. in the form of "campaign contributions"

I dont take the medicine I'm supposed to. It's around $500 a month. Not viagra or birth control, heh.

For sure. Most people go to the hospital and then the bill comes, they look at it and put it in a drawer because insurance will pay for it. A friend of mine had to have a neck surgery. The bill came and it was $40K. She laughed it off because insurance paid for all but about $200 of it. Had she been forced to pay for that out of her pocket you know she would have gone over it with a fine tooth comb and negotiated like you did.

No they wont. Look at dentistry they arent giving it away and people now go overseas and south america for dental surgery because its expensive here. There is no real insurance for it and its not rock bottom. You cant even price shop, most wont tell you shit on the phone.

That's the point of insurance. And the insurance company is beating up Doctors and the hospitals on pricing.

The way it was explained to me by the company that owned the hospital I was in (and negotiated my bill) The insurance companies and the corporations that own the hospitals are hand-in-hand on the whole thing.

It's the medical equivalent of "hidden pre-checked x-sales" lol

Basically yes. I was just in the hospital about 3 weeks ago. I stayed 3 nights. The bill is around $18K. My shitty insurance may or may not pay for it, we are still waiting to see about that. The hospital finance department basically has told me if the insurance doesn't pay they can hook me up with a policy that will allow me full insurance coverage, but I have to go to their facilities. So basically they are becoming their own insurance company.

when it comes to drugs and insurance the insurance company sets a maximum that they will pay for a particular drug. the pharmacy then charges that max, plus any co-pay. If you have a $10 co pay and the insurance max is $100 the pharmacy charges $110 for it. However, if you walk in and want to pay cash there is no limit on what they can charge. They can charge you $220 cash for the same medicine. If you call different pharmacies asking for prices on medicine often times they will ask you if you want the "cash price" which means they likely charge a different amount for cash customers.