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Radio host Rush Limbaugh has suggested that should President Obama's health plan sail through Congress, he will pack up his things and move to Costa Rica.
Limbaugh has chosen the perfect destination. The online gambling industry set up shop in this Central American paradise during the mid-1990's. Since that time operators have gone on to opening their own restaurants and constructing office buildings. Limbaugh won't have any difficulty broadcasting his radio show out of CR either with all those enormous satellite dishes sitting on the properties of sportsbooks.
The Christian Science Monitor detailed why Costa Rica would make a viable option for Mr. Limbaugh, despite some ironies.
That might sound like an unusual choice, since this is a country with one of the longest standing socialized healthcare systems on the planet. Everyone here (including resident foreigner), are required to pay into the government-run health system, whether they use it or not.
But Limbaugh's choice may also serve to advertise what many Americans traveling here for medical treatment already know: Costa Rica is a fabulous place for medical tourism.
That being said, be sure to pick your hospital wisely while in Costa Rica. We once knew of a case where a sportsbook employee was admitted with a fractured arm and doctors nearly removed her appendix.
The online gambling operators don't take their family members to public hospitals in Costa Rica though. Cadillac-style private hospitals at Chevy Aveo prices are what really draw 25,000 Americans to Costa Rica every year, the Christian Science Monitor points out.
"People travel to Costa Rica (and) receive the same quality of medical services for a fraction of the cost," said Jorge Cortés, president of the Council for International Promotion of Costa Rica Medicine and medical director of Hospital Biblica, one of three internationally-accredited private hospitals in Costa Rica. "When people see they can get the same surgery for three or four times less, they decide to get medical care abroad."
Lower labor costs and fewer malpractice suits keep the prices down here. In Costa Rica's private system, a teeth-cleaning might run $40 and a general check-up costs $50, CSM adds.
Christopher Costigan, Gambling911.com Publisher
