We have followed Ms. Giffords' remarkable recovery with awe at the seemingly limitless resources of the American medical establishment. Miracle workers working miracles and this was nothing short of many, many people putting forth maximum effort.
She is a congresswoman and was engaged in the nation's business when shot. The traumatic brain injury recovery teams basically reprogrammed a brain and by all accounts she is at the very least functional again to some extent that approaches normal - not perhaps like she was up to an instant when the fickle finger of fate entered her life - but things look pretty good or at least some optimism.
One estimate puts this 150 days or round the clock care as approaching $2 million dollars. I guess that depends on how much the doctors charge. At least she won't come out of this mired in debt for the rest of her life.
I certainly don't want to sound petty during this moment of great joy but 115,000 armed service members who have suffered traumatic brain injuries in the past decade somehow or another, while in service to the nation, didn't get this treatment although countless thousands of them would have benefited. On a more extreme stage, 1 in 7 Americans would have had the first operation and then been left for dead as they have no possible way to pay and were $200,000 in debt after the first round of surgeries. Another 100 million have co-pays so extreme that the families would have had to consider terminating treatment.
Ms. Giffords has rightfully benefited from her position and this isn't attacking her in any way. Let's make that clear. This is about the rest of us who wander around one second before a lunatic does the unspeakable, can face leaping from the pan into the financial fireplace at best or just staying in the fire til the end on the other. Such is the state of the nation.