Ocelopotamus

1,850 U.S. citizens were recently killed in an entirely preventable disaster.

It’s been a while since I’ve updated this record — 37 days, to be exact. On July 18 I started keeping count of the 50 U.S. citizens who die every day because they can’t afford health care, according to this statistic.

So in a little over a month, 1,850 more people have died. In fact, a total of 2,550 have died just since I started keeping track on July 18.

Not one of those people would have died if they’d happened to be living in Canada, or the UK, or France, or any other country with a civilized health care system.

Not one of those people needed to die.

2,550 Americans who would still be alive this week, calling their family members on the phone, wrapping up their summers, making plans for the fall.

50 more U.S. citizens will die today. And tomorrow. And the day after that.

And the hell of it is, we know what’s killing them — the insurance companies and their obscene, for-profit health care system.

And we know how to save their lives: Take profit out of the health care system, like Canada, France, and the UK have done. Stop letting big corporations effectively murder U.S. citizens in order to keep their shareholders happy.

So why are we letting our friends and neighbors die?

Michael Moore’s Web site has a list of things you can do to change the system.

1. Call or write your member of Congress right now (I’ll wait) and tell him or her that you insist they become a co-sponsor of H.R. 676 — “The United States National Health Insurance Act.” It’s sponsored currently by Rep. John Conyers and 76 other members of Congress. Insist that your congressperson be one of those co-sponsors. I want to see 100 co-sponsors by Thanksgiving. Will you help make that happen?

2. Call and write to each of the candidates running for President. Tell them you expect them to back H.R. 676, and to take the Senator Brown pledge. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio refuses to accept his free, government-run health insurance until EVERY American is covered.

3. Organize your own local HealthCare-Now! coalition. You can do it in your own neighborhood. It has to start somewhere. Everyday people have to make this happen. Don’t wait for someone else to do this. Ask yourself, “if not me, who?”

4. Call your local media and tell them about your health care horror story. Many papers and TV stations have been running these since “Sicko” arrived in theaters. They like the local angle. Tell them you saw the movie and that there’s a “Sicko” story happening right here in (fill in the blank). Tell them you are passing it on to me.

Sicko focused a lot of people’s attention on this crisis. There will be another wave of attention when it comes out on DVD.

But it’s up to all of us to keep that attention alive until things change: everyone who saw the film, everyone who knows someone who isn’t getting the health care they need, every one of us who is scared that some day we might wind up as one of those 50 Americans who die on any given day because the health care system shuts them out.