The United States leads the world in health care spending per person by a large margin. Despite the willingness to spend huge quantities of money, the likelihood of receiving substandard care or being the victim of medical malpractice is surprisingly high. We rank 50th in the world in total life expectancy and 47th in infant mortality. Many estimates place the number of preventable deaths suffered at the hands of medical providers at or above 100,000 per year. Most Americans have no idea how to go about finding a quality health care provider.
The Search for Quality Health Care
Federal Law Bans Renting Out Recalled Cars
The largest car rental company in the United States is no longer opposing a new federal regulation impacting recalled vehicles and the rental industry. Enterprise Rent-A-Car had previously treated the new law concerning recalled dangerous vehicles as unnecessary and had allegedly lobbied against its passage. After a petition supporting the measure acquired more than 100,000 signatures in less than a week, the company may be changing its stance. The petition was launched by a woman who lost two daughters to a car accident involving an Enterprise rental car that was subject to a recall, but had not been brought in for repair.
Rearview Camera Law to Reduce Fatal Car-Pedestrian Accidents
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is proposing a mandate to Congress, requiring auto makers to equip all new passenger vehicles with rearview cameras by 2014. The cameras primary benefit would be to reduce the fatal car accidents involving vehicles backing over pedestrians, most often children. The mandate, first proposed in 2010, has been discussed by numerous safety groups as the best way to combat a common, and tragic, form of accident. This is one of the first measures proposed by the NHTSA designed to protect pedestrians from motor vehicles.
