Talk about a win/win situation:
Responding to a caller who asked him where he would go for health care if Congress enacts reform, Limbaugh replied:
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.
Don’t forget to take your viagra with you.
(via commenter Maureen S.)
TR
Sweet Jesus, can we find a way to make that legally binding?
Perry Como
Uh, Costa Rica has soshulized medicine.
ellaesther
Really, pity the poor Costa Ricans.
I mean, buy him the ticket, but pity the poor Costa Ricans.
feebog
Costa Rica to Rush Limbaugh: We don’t want your fat ass, try Dumbfuckistan.
acallidryas
Of course, Costa Rica, like most countries, has nationalized health care.
TR
Yeah, I just realized the same thing as Perry there.
williamc
God damn, my Rep is already going to vote for the bill, but now I’m totally gonna work the phones to get this bill passed and get that fat bastard out of here.
Hopefully he takes his asshole friends Beck and Hannity with him.
Lolis
Oh, he can buy his Viagra down there. It’ll be cheaper.
Evinfuilt
@Perry Como:
Does it matter. I’d start an Act Blue account to pay for his ticket out of here. Wouldn’t even take long to reach its goal.
Brachiator
Oh, the irony …
Don’t let the ditto heads know.
joes527
yeah yeah.
Rush and Alec Baldwin.
Separated at birth?
Could push some folks on the fence over to the PTDB side, so there’s that.
4tehlulz
Is Costa Rica the new hot sex tourism spot?
benjoya
costa rica doesn’t have an army. also.
SpotWeld
Limbaugh earns enough that whatever get’s passed will have zero effect on him.
He’s got a contract big enough and enough money sheltered away that every bank in the US could turn to dust and all he’d have to do is lock down the gates to his compund and turn up the recordings of his own voice to drown out the cries for help.
And he’d still say he was being given a rough deal
Bill Arnold
… and no army. And a credible claim to being the greenest country in the world.
(perhaps RL was joking.)
me
He’s going to go galt? Shouldn’t he go to Somalia, the laissez faire capitalists paradise, then?
I wonder if he ever had anything to say about Alec Baldwin’s threat to move to Canada if Bush was elected.
jibeaux
…and the facebook group is live.
Beeb
Oh noes! Please, someone tell Rush that Costa Rica has a comprehensive public health insurance system. It isn’t that I don’t want Rush to go away, I just don’t want him to emigrate to the country that’s at the top of my list for “places to move to if a Republican wins in 2012.”
Rey
Rush leaving the US? Yippee kay yay mofo!
Zifnab
Limbaugh also vacations in Hawaii, where he received the vile taint of socialized health care once before.
Of course, a dude that fat, hopped up on that many boner pills and that much oxycotin, needs all the cheap medical care he can get his pudgy hands around.
Sentient Puddle
I bet if you ran a national ad campaign playing this clip, support for the bill would jump at least 10 points.
ksmiami
Please please please can we hold him to it?… though I love Costa Rica and the people there so much that I would hope he could consider Somalia or Yemen instead. Is it just me, or is Rush… just disgusting like a modern Jabba the Hut with Talking points???? I mean this is who the Republicans look to for leadership???? Really???
Kilks
I realize Rush is not trying to be logical, but moving from a country which is passing half done health care reform to a country with single payer health care is pretty amusing.
I would love to see Rush go to a clinica here in Costa Rica.
jibeaux
@me:
Now, that’s just cruel, he’s going to have a hard time finding oxycontin and boner pills in Somalia. Guinea-Bissou, as a narco-state, is obviously a better fit.
valdivia
Maybe Rush did not hear that Costa Rica just now rejected the libertarian candidate in an election. They have themselves a womyn President now. And as pointed out above, they have themselves a soci-alist healthcare.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
Limbaugh should check out Guyana, where rent and life is cheap in Jonestown.
bondwooley
Please move, Rush! – so that the rest of us can stop threatening to!
Video Link: The Last Straw
(satire)
Citizen_X
There’s a lot of this going around. I mentioned to my (Fox News-watching) parents that I applied for a job in Australia, and my mom mentioned some friend threatening to move to Australia “if government health care passes.” To which I replied, “But they already have ‘government health care’ in Australia.”
It’s all about the huffy threats.
The Grand Panjandrum
As I wrote in a previous thread he also once said we should send drug addicts to the Netherlands where they are wanted. We’re still waiting for Rush to be the first one to head for Amsterdam.
valdivia
@4tehlulz:
actually it has been already for a while.
bemused
What, he doesn’t like the Dominican Republic anymore?
jibeaux
@Citizen_X:
If you really want to tax a winger’s brain, ask them sometime which country with lower taxes than the U.S.’s would they actually be willing to move to and live in as a regular working citizen? Check back in a couple of days to see if they’ve managed to google anything.
bemused
@Citizen_X:
That’s hilarious. Um, what did your parents say then?
Egypt Steve
Damn, everybody’s made the same point I wanted to make. Is there a place Limpballs could go that does *not* have universal health care? North Korea has it; Bangladesh has it. Didn’t somebody once take over an abandoned oil exploration platform in the North Sea and try to declare it an independent nation so they could turn it into a tax haven? Maybe Rush can go there.
Michael
Um, if he wants better health care then in the 36th-ranked US, according to the WHO, he should be visiting 35th-ranked Costa Rica now.
Pangloss
Make him the King of Haiti. But first evacuate the Haitians.
Maude
@valdivia: at 25
Don’t you mean Feminazi? (sp?)
JD Rhoades
@joes527:
Yeah, I was just thinking about that… remember when Alec Baldwin was called a traitor for joking that he’d leave the country if Bush was re-elected?
Daddy-O
Let’s see…Rush goes to Costa Rica…Markos Moulitsas COMES from Costa Rica…
I’ll take that trade in a New York minute.
Daddy-O
Unfortunately, he’ll still be able to broadcast even if he emigrates from West Palm Beach.
Or maybe he’ll retire. That’s when he’ll let us all know it was just an ACT. For the MONEY. As if we didn’t know.
Bill E Pilgrim
Why don’t these people ever threaten to move to where their minimalist-to-no-government principles have actually been put into practice?
Like Somalia.
Andy
To be fair, Limbaugh does have a history of praising socialized medicine on tropical, resort-filled islands.
carlos the dwarf
@jibeaux:
The Catholics love Malta. No property taxes, and abortion is constitutionally prohibited. It’s Europe’s business-friendly offshore tax haven, pretty much. [It has soshulized medicine, but the smallness of the government otherwise makes up for it.]
Morbo
@acallidryas: And they somehow do it with 7% of GDP. Fiscal Conservatism!
slippy
Rush doesn’t NEED the healthcare plan. At all. In point of fact, Rush makes more money, by TWO ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE than most healthcare plans’ lifetime benefit caps (which are around $1 million).
Rush’s last contract with Clear Channel gave him $400 million. Meaning that all he has to do is put away $2 mil somewhere where he won’t forget and buy a bunch of viagra and oxy with it, and he could just draw on that account to “cover” his expenses.
He would have a more reliable healthcare plan with that than Americans like myself who pay $1000 a month for a family of four and still get nicked at the emergency room for an additional $300 should I dare to need emergent care.
But the real story is Rush is lying as usual. Healthcare will pass (the panic on the Right is becoming palpable and I am loving every second of it) and Rush will stay on his encysted ass in front of his microphone in Florida and forget he ever said such a thing, or pretend he was joking.
“Humor” is the new lying . . . pass it on.
slag
Wouldn’t Rush rather move to Somalia? I hear that place is a libertarian’s paradise.
And did he ever fulfill his promise to leave New York indefinitely?
bemused
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Once, I had sent that great Regulation Vacation (Somalia) utube to an R relative. She didn’t think it was amusing or that it even had a point to make. I guess this country has too many regulations as it is in her book.
slag
@Perry Como: How awesome would it be to hear one of his callers point that out to him?
some guy
http://article.nationalreview.com/266881/hollywood-fools/jonah-goldberg
Has anyone emailed Jonah Goldberg to ask him if he thinks Rush Limbaugh is “an un-American fool” yet?
rob!
I am leaving the country. I’ll go to Costa Rica.
In a related story, Costa Rica has begun a draconian reform of their immigration laws.
Xenos
@rob!: I think Costa Rica would be happy to have Rush (from the link posted at @acallidryas above)
Flat taxes, baby! Nothing like a $5,500,000.00 annual premium to make him appreciate socialized medicine.
Ash Can
“I am leaving the country.”
Boy, wouldn’t that be great? What a shame it’s just a pipe dream. Limblow knows he can say anything, anything at all, because his listeners will eat it up and never question him. He says this on air, it gets him the reaction he wants (and any reaction he doesn’t want is screened out), and he laughs all the way to the bank. Rinse, repeat.
It’s fun to imagine, though…
Brian J
@TR:
That sounds like a nightmare.
WereBear
Rush should be sure to ask his doctor if he’s healthy enough to make false threats.
FlipYrWhig
@Daddy-O:
Isn’t Markos Moulitsas from El Salvador?
Paul L.
Limbaugh vows to flee the country if health care passes.
Looks like Thinkprogress/Huffpo/Media Matters are lying and taking Rush out of context. The headline should be:
Limbaugh vows to flee the country if private health care is outlawed in US.
So I take this as proof that progressive/Democrats still support outlawing paying doctors privately like in Clintoncare.
Arclite
In addition to having “socialized” medicine, Costa Rica is also prohibited constitutionally from having an army. The only thing they have is a national police force. If that doesn’t peg the Left-O-Meter off the charts, nothing will.
Of course even if he moved to Costa Rica, he would still keep his radio show. The wonders of modern technology.
me
English motherfucker, do you speak it?
snds4x4
I’m not sure if this is good news. I was planning on retiring in Costa Rica to get away from people like him.
Now, if he could only take Glenn Beck with him, then I might stay in here.
madmatt
why is a costa rican public option ok?
artem1s
With my sincerest deepest apologies to the people of Costa Rica. Please for the love of Jeebus, let this happen.
kay
@Paul L.:
Well, why doesn’t he know if that’s been “outlawed” in the Senate bill?
This is his job, right? Telling conservatives everything they know about health care reform. Why doesn’t he read something?
You listen to him 5 hours a day for this? Stupid speculation on whether he can hire a private doctor to keep on “retainer”?
We’re all on the edge of our seats here.
Does Rush Limbaugh have to move to Costa Rica to get his rather specialized medical needs attended to by a ready team of various physical and mental health professionals, or not?
woody45
Memo to Rush: I’ll drive you to the airport on the condition that we stop in a parking lot along the way to get a prescription filled.
Paris
Bummer, I was seriously considering moving to Costa Rica when I retire. Well, there is always Kazakhstan.
Dan Robinson
Costa Rica is where he goes to get Viagra. He goes to the Dominican Republic for oxycontin and Haiti for little girls.
Evinfuilt
@some guy:
Better yet, did anyone tell Jonah that Baldwin is in fact Canadian?
Bob L
So Rush says that Costa Rica is pushing the Dominican Republic out as the new hot spot for child sex tourist?
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
It’s probably already been pointed out in the comments, but Costa Rica has Evil Socialized Health Care, far more Satanic and Collectivist than anything being proposed for the U.S.
maus
Funny, just a month or two ago my grandparents were telling me how amazing Costa Rica’s health care was when they were living there.
frankdawg
OK – that changed my mind – pass this crappy gift to the insurance industry disguised as health care reform.
It is no longer useless if it make that fat, worthless pustule go away forever.
AnotherBruce
Frankly, Costa Rica is too good for Limbaugh, I think a more appropriate place is Neptune. Like Limbaugh it’s huge, cold, dark and gaseous.
licensed to kill time
Having improved health care coverage in this country will be a small price to pay for getting rid of Rush Limbaugh. Let’s all suffer through the indignity of actually having health insurance to nudge him along to Go Galt Costa Ricastan. It will be a bitter pill to swallow, I know, but let’s do it for the old fat bastard.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@frankdawg:
Let me guess…
That’s change you can believe in?
;)
Sorry Costa Rica but once this bill passes he’s all yours. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there and you are a puppy. Look at the bright side though; he’s old, fat and out of shape. He won’t be around much longer and you can pass some new laws to grab his cash and property once he heads for hell.
The Populist
I hope he does go to Costa Rica. With the way things are changing in South America, he may be in for a big shock in 5 more years. Populations are growing in those countries and becoming VERY soc ial ist in their view of capitalism.
ET
Wasn’t he one of those that laughed at Alec Baldwin for saying he’d leave the country (go to Canada I think) if Bush won again?
The Populist
@ET:
Yep. Proves guys like him talk about loving America but really don’t.
Real love is understanding that compromise and loyalty go hand in hand. Fucks like Limbaugh are all about defending an elistist minority and nothing else. He could give two shits about the little guy.
some guy
So how much longer until Rush and/or his defenders claim he was satirizing Alec Baldwin. I thought this was the standard answer to any and all complaints against Rush these days.
DanF
@benjoya: I LOVE that about Costa Rica. They rolled all the money they would have spent on a military and put it into education.
Delia
Oh, promises, promises . . . .
Erik Vanderhoff
Shit, I can never go to Jaco and Villa Caletas again.
asiangrrlMN
I will chip in a few bills to make this happen. “Rush to Costa Rica: Change I can believe in!” Whatever. He’s still in NYC, isn’t he?