The Costa Rica stupidity continues – Bloombama News Service has now joined the chorus of media stupidity.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=as29boo9FyVQ
On the positive side, at least they did some original research about Costa Rica’s medical system, and attempted to contact Rush.
First the probable background of why Rush pulled Costa Rica out of the air:
Insurance company caller talking about sending people to Costa Rica for treatement (November 2009)
Regarding the purpose of their story and Rush’s response, they quote Rush explaining the confusion on “stupid people in the media who cannot trouble themselves to read my transcripts or listen to this program.”
but Bloombama didn’t apparently bother to look at the transcript. Let me help out:
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_030810/content/01125111.guest.html
RUSH: Yes! It’s going to be the only people providing insurance.
CALLER: Where, then, would you go for health care?
RUSH: Where would I go for health care?
CALLER: Yeah, if the private doctors have to go into the federal program.
RUSH: My guess is even in Canada and even in the UK, doctors have opted out. They can’t see anybody, Medicare, Medicaid, or what will become the exchanges. They have to have a clientele of private patients that will pay them a retainer, and it’s going to be a very small practice. I don’t know if that has been outlawed in the Senate bill.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: I don’t know. 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.
No reasonable person can read that in context and think anything other than Rush is talking about going to Costa Rica for medical treatment, not moving to Costa Rica. Rush has said multiple times that the problem with Health Care IS insurance – that if people paid their own bills for cash (as he does) that we wouldn’t have the problems with high costs.
Rush is not talking about Costa Rica’s socialized medical system – it is a growing industry of medical tourism being used more and more by people trying to save costs.
