Limbaugh Inadvertently Endorses Costa Rica’s Government Health Care System
Limbaugh Inadvertently Endorses Costa Rica’s Government Health Care System
Yesterday, Rush Limbaugh — who has been one of health care reform’s most vociferous opponents — warned his loyal troop of “ditto heads” that if health care passes, he’ll leave the country for Costa Rica. “I’ll just tell you this,” Limbaugh said to a concerned caller. “If this passes and it’s five years from now and all that stuff gets implemented — I am leaving the country. I’ll go to Costa Rica.”
Listen:
Limbaugh’s announcement could very well inspire liberals to pass reform, but his decision to re-locate to Costa Rica is also telling. Limbaugh probably chose Costa Rica because its tropical climate reminded him of his swanky New York City bachelor pad and he believed that this tiny Central American nation — population 4 million — couldn’t insure its citizens.
But unbeknownst Rush, Costa Rica’s hybrid government-private health care system provides comprehensive universal coverage to all residents — and even sells affordable policies to soon-to-be visitors like Limbaugh. The government owns several major public hospitals and operates small clinics in almost every community. Workers are required to contribute 15% of their salaries to health insurance and the unemployed “obtain public funding for all health services, including prescription drugs.” At least a third of all Costa Rican residents receive some care in the private sector and the government regularly purchases services from private providers. The system is not without its problems, but it boasts a higher ranking from the World Health Organization — Costa Rica is 36, United States 37 — and has higher life expectancy and lower infant mortality rates. Costa Rica also spends less per capita on health care than the United States and insures almost all of its residents.
In fact, there is literally nowhere in the developed world Limbaugh can travel to receive market-driven medicine or escape “government intervention in health care.” Thus, his accidental endorsement of universal health reform and Palin’s admission that she had traveled to single-payer Canada for care, make for several curious conservative endorsements of greater government involvement in the health care system.
4 Responses to “Limbaugh Inadvertently Endorses Costa Rica’s Government Health Care System”
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Rush – please go! If just so the rest of us can stop threatening to move to Canada while you’re here!
Video: The Last Straw
(satire)
March 9th, 2010 at 5:07 pmAfter HCR passes, we need to ask Keith Oberman to keep a daily calendar of the number of days until Rush leaves!
March 9th, 2010 at 5:09 pmThe whole framework of the debate is in error. Health is not a commodity that can be dispensed by government, though they are good at harming or killing people. Meanwhile the false choice of having health dispensed from big businesses or the government that is in bad with them every night is no choice at all. The reform that is needed is to rein in the reckless overuse of drugs in healthy people to treat lab values, the use of dangerous and unproven vaccines for everything under the sun, the screening tests such as whole body CT scans “virtual physicals” which expose the recipient to an amount of radiation similar to that of Hiroshima atomic bomb survivors 1 1/2 miles from the blast. The last thing we need is more of such “healthcare” least of all from a government that could care less about the health and lives of its citizens. But it must be a powertrip for bureaucrats to try and meddle in the most private details of the citizens.
March 10th, 2010 at 1:02 amhttp://healthjournalclub.blogspot.com/
I’ve been without healthcare for several years now and have some serious health issues. I’d like to just be able to go to the doctor if I get sick or injured and not go bankrupt, which is not a worry for the rest of the industrialized world. Philip, to say that the only reform needed is “reckless dosing”, well, you obviously either do not have to deal with any sort of chronic illness without insurance or else you are lucky to have the option to go to a doctor without these worries. What a luxury.
March 10th, 2010 at 10:14 pm