Limbaugh Now Says He Won’t Move To Costa Rica — Will Just Go There To Use Its Public Health System

By Zaid Jilani On Monday, hate radio host Rush Limbaugh pledged to leave the country and go to Costa Rica if Congress successfully passes and implements its health care legislation. Yesterday, Limbaugh claimed that he never said he’d leave the country. The host explained that what he meant was that he would go to Costa Rica to “get major medical care,” meaning he’d travel there exclusively to use their health care system:

LIMBAUGH: I did not say I’m going to Costa Rica. The stupid people in the media who cannot trouble themselves to read my transcripts or listen to this program, listen to out of context stuff. I was asked yesterday where will I go for health care if Obama’s health care passes, and I said if doctors here are not permitted to form private practice little clinics with individuals paying a fee, a retainer, and for services, then I’ll go to Costa Rica to get major medical health care. I didn’t say I would move there. They’re all over these websites: “Limbaugh says he’d move to Costa Rica. Why, what more incentive do we have to pass health care to get Limbaugh to move to Costa Rica?” Now, New Zealand is reading about this and they’re all bent out of shape that I’m somehow not coming there, all because of the stupid media. They are not competing for me because Costa Rica doesn’t think I’m going to move there, which I wouldn’t. Gosh.

Listen to it:

What is ironic about Limbaugh — who has ranted about the dangers of “socialized health care” for years — seeking health care in Costa Rica is that the country has a hybrid government-private health care system that provides comprehensive universal coverage to all of its residents. 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.” Most Costa Ricans obtain their health care through a public plan called the Caja — similar to our Medicare or the proposed public option.

Costa Rica’s system of universal coverage is so effective that it actually ranks one slot above the United States in the World Health Organization’s ranking of health systems worldwide while actually spending less per capita than we do. Does Limbaugh’s threat to seek health care on Costa Rica mean that the radio host is endorsing a similar system for the United States?

M.C.L comment: I guess no one will ever accused Rush be the brightest bulb in the right wing lamp, but here's the news update teenage boys in Costa Rica are safe to come out of their homes the mean white man with a suit case filled with little blue boner pills isn't going to move to Costa Rica. But still travel in groups young men just in case you run across a balding fat white man with a cigar.

Limbaugh ‘leaving the country’ if health reform passes

By David Edwards and Daniel Tencer For years, promises to leave the United States in the wake of an undesirable political development have been the domain of liberals. Celebrities such as Alec Baldwin, Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon all at some point suggested they would move to Canada if a Republican won the White House.

(There's even a Facebook group around to motivate them, complete with a helpful link to Canada's department of citizenship and immigration.)

While most of those were empty threats, there are notable exceptions: Film director Robert Altman moved to France after George W. Bush's victory in 2000; Law & Order star Michael Moriarty shipped off to Canada well before that.

But now the decidedly non-liberal Rush Limbaugh has made a similar move, telling his audience he will move to Costa Rica if health care reform becomes law. And now the only question that remains is whether Limbaugh will make good on his word, or join the ranks of the empty-promisers.

"If the health care bill passes, where would you go for health care yourself?" a caller asked Limbaugh on his radio show Tuesday

"I’ll just tell you this, 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," Limbaugh replied.

This audio is from Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show, broadcast March 8, 2009 and uploaded by Media Matters.

M.C.L Comment: Parents of Costa Rica lock up your teenage boys because Rush is coming armed with little blue boner pills. I'm guessing boys in the Dominican Republic are finally breathing a sigh of relief.