Well, actually, no film. Why? Because this isn’t sexy enough for TV, compared to Britney’s latest camera-friendly freak-out:
The United States ranks last among 19 industrialized nations when it comes to deaths that could have been prevented.
The report by The Commonwealth Fund, published in the journal Health Affairs, said 101,000 deaths per year could have been prevented by access to timely and effective healthcare. The top performers were France, Japan and Australia.
Ellen Nolte and Martin McKee of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine looked at deaths “amenable to healthcare before age 75 between 1997-98 and 2002-03.”
The researchers found that while other countries saw these types of deaths decline by an average of 16 percent, the United States experienced only a 4 percent decline. “It is notable that all countries have improved substantially except the U.S.,” said Nolte, lead author of the study.
Commonwealth Fund Senior Vice President Cathy Schoen said the finding that other countries are reducing preventable deaths more rapidly with less money “indicates that policy, goals and efforts to improve health systems make a difference.”
Translation from Wonkish to plain English: Knock off with all the free-market shit, America, you are starting to eat your young! Get single-payer public healthcare already, and take some lessons from your neighbors to the north!
Of course, to say something like that would make one a socialist, and everyone knows socialism is evil. Milton Friedman said so. (So do some “Christian” wackos with obviously zero knowledge of the subject.)
Soon as I find out where they buried Friedman, I swear I will make a pilgrimage to piss on his grave. I think it’s quite right to hold him responsible for the current mess, and I hate what he’s done to my American friends.
What a pity we Canadians don’t have another John Kenneth Galbraith on hand to lend our buddies to help them get themselves sorted out properly.
