Today in head-shaking

 Once upon a time she was America's Sweetheart, in the way tiny world-beating women's gymnasts are always America's Sweetheart. Now Mary Lou Retton is 55 years old (55! How is that possible?) and hooked up to a machine in a Texas hospital, unable to breathe on her own.

She has an extremely rare form of pneumonia. And she's been in the ICU for two weeks now.

That's not the head-shaking part of this, however. Although it's close.

The head-shaking part is learning Mary Lou Retton, America's Sweetheart, has no health insurance.

I find this almost impossible to believe. How can someone as prominent as Mary Lou Retton  -- someone who has presumably made a good deal of money off that gold medal she won in 1984 -- not have health insurance? And not only that, but not have the very best health insurance in a society that insists the quality of one's health care should be based on how much money one has?

It's an ass-backward system and always has been, inciting their own spasm of head-shaking from saner countries -- i.e., countries that have universal health care, which is every developed nation except the U.S. Only in the U.S. does America's Sweetheart have to depend on the kindness of strangers to defray her medical expenses.

Fortunately, there is no shortage of kindness for America's Sweetheart. So far 5,000 people have donated more than $275,000 in 24 hours. So good on them.

But every time I read that, I shake my head at the wrongness of it. Just as I shake my head every time I see a TV ad for Shriner's Hospitals or St. Jude's or any other health-care facility that must go to the public with their hands out to make sure children with disabilities or cancer get the care they need and deserve.

In a better world -- a better nation -- they wouldn't have to do that. In fact, they wouldn't even have to exist, because kids with disabilities or cancer would already be getting the care they need without having to depend on treatment centers funded by private donations.

Shaking my head again.