The Second City Partisans heard the cries from conservatives, and their myopic threats too! Tweets carried the impassioned cry that some short-sighted conservatives were finally pulling up stakes, and moving to – Canada! Imagine their disappointment to learn that Canada is yet another repressive government ‘shoving healthcare down their throats.’ Likewise fleeing to Japan, Germany, Singapore or the United Arab Emirates won’t provide them with the right to sicken and die without medical intervention.
We are among the last ‘advanced’ countries without a universal health care system, and the statistics are telling. In 1950 female life expectancy was 5th in world. By 2009 it had fallen to number 46 – below all of the countries who aren’t ‘number one’ as we like to delude ourselves the U.S. still is.
Ironically, the example used in this spoof of Africa as the last frontier isn’t exactly accurate. The Marshall Plan was cited by AFRICOM in support of a Department of Defense engagement in health systems construction across Africa. This year, South Africa was the number one recipient of health aid from the United States, totaling nearly $470 million, much of which is supporting the country’s 14-year program to build universal health coverage…And no one complained about our enslavement of South Africa or Japan before it, with our crazy health care plan.
