Now That Health Care Reform Has Passed, The Rush Countdown...

You may remember one of the few moments of levity in the incredibly complex and partisan discussions of health care reform came from Rush Limbaugh (surprisingly). In January, Mr. Limbaugh ended up in a Hawaiian hospital with chest pains. At a press conference after his recovery, he said, "Based on what happened here to me, I don’t think there’s one thing wrong with the American health care system. It is working just fine, just dandy.” What Mr. Limbaugh apparently didn’t know is that since 1974, Hawaii has had a statewide employer mandate for health insurance and near universal coverage for health care—a key provision of the now-signed health care reform bills. It was irony worth a chuckle.

Roll forward a month, and Mr. Limbaugh added another moment to remember when answering a caller's question on his radio show. The caller asked what he would when the health care reform bill passed. He responded, "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." The irony is that Costa Rica has universal, publicly-financed health care—and one of the highest life expectancies on the globe (78.8 year). The very 'socialized' medicine that Mr. Limbaugh has long opposed. It was a great bit of humor in a very intense public discourse.

But, now the day has come. March 23, 2010, the health care reform bill was signed by President Obama. We have the countdown to March 23, 2015 to look forward to.