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Comment by melling | Hacker News Reader

They got rid of their military: http://articles.latimes.com/2013/dec/15/opinion/la-oe-barash...

Wow. That is truly amazing. What is almost as shocking to me is that I have never heard of this before. I have heard that Costa rica was a model for its healthcare sytem but i never heard that it didn't have a military.

This story should be told more often and Costa rica should be a model for the world in this regard.

It's a lot easier when your national security is underwritten by the world's largest military force.

In essence, they have made themselves a client state.

That's true insofar as dealing with the Eastern Hemisphere. I don't know of any doctrine that would compel us to aid them in the event of invasion from e.g. anywhere else in Latin America.

The borders of Costa Rica are really close to the Panama Canal. If Nicaragua started to invade Costa Rica, I think America would put a stop to it really quickly to protect the Canal.

I'm sure it's completely altruistic and not having to do with beneficial trade agreements.

Could you link to a source for this. The relevant wikipedia article makes the same claim but is tagged [citation needed]. The LA times article linked by the parent says "(Costa Rica is presumably sheltered by the U.S., but only under the loose ties of the Organization of American States)" which is kind of vague and mysterious. All the countries of the Americas are in that organisation so that leaves the question of what would happen in a conflict between neighbours.

I'm an expat that lives here, the social healthcare system is a complete mess and garbage. As an employer, not only do I have to pay a ~30% tax over the salary of each employee (to pay this healthcare system) - in the end you must resort to private healthcare as the system is terrible. If your not half dead, you will wait hours and hours (not even kidding) trying to be attended. Aside from waiting hours and hours on end just to be attended, the doctors treat you like crap, the nurses treat you like crap - no one cares if you live or die.

Story: My wife's brother was crossing the street and was hit by a car, pretty badly at around 8pm. He was able to get able, and they took him to this public hospital. He has bleeding, vomiting (from concussion) and he waiting over 12 hours to be attended. The only they did was give him an IV for his dehydration (due to excessive vomiting for 12 hours from concussion), told him he was fine and to go home. He asked for a pill for vomiting, and doctor told him to go across the street to the pharmacy to buy it. Yes, really.

The private healthcare sector here is pretty good. A bit expensive, but good. I could have had my kids here in the "Caja" (public hospital) for free, but after hearing tons of complaints and horror stories it was better to just pay a $5000-$6000 fee to the doctors and hospital in the private sector to have each of my kids born.

Costa Rica is absolutely not a model for it's healthcare system. It's expensive, in huge debt, it's terrible, and no one cares about you. Would not recommend.

Exactly. Having armed forces ready to stage a coup any time their friends in the State Department or CIA encourage them leads you down the route of Honduras, Chile, and so on.

Except that they could abolish the army because USA has underwritten their security. So in essence they have gone one further than Chile.

Characterising the situation of Central American states as having "the US underwrite their security" seems willfully at odds with actual history.

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