Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

If health care reform passes.......

.....Rush Limbaugh will move to Costa Rica.

Commentary By Ron Beasley



There is at least one good reason to pass health care reform - Rush Limbaugh will leave the country.



CALLER: If the health care bill passes, where would you go for health care yourself? And the second part of that is, what would happen to the doctors, do they have to participate in the federal program, or could they opt out of it? [...]



LIMBAUGH: My guess in even in Canada and even in the UK, doctors have opted out. And once they�ve opted, 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�ll be a very small practice. I don�t know if that�s been outlawed in the Senate bill. 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.





Of course Rush fails to mention  as Brian Brokstader points out,  Costa Rica already has a national health care system.



Costa Ricans are proud of their nation�s achievements in the field of health care. Their up-to-date, affordable, state-run �cradle to grave� health care system reaches all levels of society by offering the same medical treatment to the poor as those with greater resources. Hospitals, clinics and complete medical services are available in all major cities and some small towns. More than 90 percent of the population is covered by the Social Security System.

Many international medical authorities rate Costa Rica as having one of the best low-cost medical care systems in the world, when preventive and curative medicines are considered. The United Nations consistently ranks Costa Rica�s public health system as the best in Latin America and one of the top 20 in the world.

It is no wonder a large number of foreigners are attracted to Costa Rica because of its affordable health care. In the United States, for example, millions of people do not have health insurance because it is prohibitively expensive. For this reason, Costa Rica attracts many retirees from North America. It doesn�t matter if you are a legal resident or a traveler. Everyone is entitled to emergency care at a government hospital.

Good Bye Rush



Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)