Let me share a little secret that some of you may not know.  There is a little country in South America called Uruguay; which used to be referred as the “Switzerland of South America”.  Thousands and thousands of expats: British, French, Australians and tons of Americans are “early retiring” there, why??

Well this little speck of a third world country has socialized medicine; meaning everyone is covered somehow, whether it is under the National Health Service, co-operatives much like our HMO’s or private doctors. Somehow Uruguay managed to have a state of the art medical system at a very low cost, but especially because the University is free to anyone that wants to study; loans for students are unheard of. 

A lot of Americans have decided that paying high premiums, deductibles and so forth was not worth their while, so they sold their assets in the USA and packed their bags to Uruguay where for a mere 100.00 a month you get full medical coverage, medicines, hospitalization, alternative medicine therapies, doctors going to your home, private ambulance service and funeral arrangements all paid for. They brought with them the results of an unhealthy lifestyle: diabetes, heart disease, cancer.

You have the rich “early retirees”, as well as the no so rich but still can live very nicely cashing out the monthly Social Security disability checks that allowed them to romp around and get ample supplies of Vicoden for free. n. The medical services have some co pays which may vary between 5 dollars for a doctor’s visit, to 50 dollars for an MRI.

Now to get to the point of my story…if you read into some of this expat chat rooms in Uruguay, you may find these Americans balking about being taxed when they reside elsewhere in the world, and yes you guess it!…they bark at the possibility of having to pay another health care premium if Obama’s health care reform passes.

Most of the comments come from very obvious conservative minds that are currently enjoying the fruits of a Socialist society, while living in a country where the President of the Nation is none other than a former guerrilla leader who fought the injustices of American political intrusion in our country for years. President Mujica is a Communist, him and his Senator wife are part of the Frente Amplio which has won the Presidency twice so far. This reminds me a bit of Rush Limbaugh wanting to go to Costa Rica to retire.

I find it absolutely hilarious that ultra conservative Americans will retire in a socialist country when they “hate” socialism so much…then again, where else would they go to have affordable and decent treatment without losing their nest egg?...certainly not back to Iowa that is for sure.

And if wonder what the “locals” say about all this…well they are not happy that a bunch of “locos” are rising the real estate prices and they wish they would all pack up and take their diseases back to the US.