All that strutting, all those jumping jack flashes, all those drugs, all that loud music finally took its toll on 75-year-old Mick Jagger's heart.  It needed a new valve.  And so the British-born, British-raised Jagger had his valve replacement surgery performed...no! no! no!...not in Britain, home to socialized free medicine for all, but right here in the good ol' USA.  In New York City.  Yes, New York, where he purchased an expensive home nearly three years ago for the American Ballet Theater dancer who is the mother of his eighth child when they demanded gimme shelter, is part of America, no matter what its inhabitants — and the rest of the country — think.

The U.S.'s medical system seems to be treating him very well.

Thank you everyone for all your messages of support, I’m feeling much better now and on the mend - and also a huge thank you to all the hospital staff for doing a superb job.

— Mick Jagger (@MickJagger) April 5, 2019

Well, good.  But why did he choose the USA for his medical care instead of England?  While I'm not privy to such intimate decisions, perhaps it has something to do with Jagger joining other wealthy celebrities and business people as a tax exile years ago.  After all, before he rocked, he studied...accounting (yes, really — at the London School of Economics).  He worked hard, made money, and the British socialist government initially took 90% of it.

Someone has to pay for all the free stuff in a socialized country.  But many of England's wealthy, including Jagger, decided they wouldn't.  So to escape the punishingly high taxes, he recorded in France, and later, fleeing the latter's high taxes, he and his band mates parked their money in Holland thanks to the advice of their accountant.

And so, last August, according to details disclosed in documents maintained by the Handelsregister, the trade registry of the Netherlands, Promogroup helped the three performers set up a pair of private Dutch foundations that will allow them to transfer assets tax-free to heirs when they die.  Other Dutch shelters that Promogroup has arranged for the three have already paid off handsomely; over the last 20 years, according to Dutch documents, the three musicians have paid just $7.2 million in taxes on earnings of $450 million that they have channeled through Amsterdam — a tax rate of about 1.5 percent, well below the British rate of 40 percent.

And you thought accountants were dull.

Also, despite...because of the inherent flaws in socialized medicine, "you can't always get what you want," let alone "get what you need," as Jagger sang years ago.  Although not singing about medicine at the time, he might have been, according to this sad, but not surprising, report describing how British patients are not getting what they need — let alone what they want — in British socialized medicine heaven, which we would call hell.   

Thousands in Britain left to go blind due to eye surgery rationing: Report

LONDO (XINHUA) — Thousands of elderly people in Britain are left to go blind because of rationing of eye surgery in the National Health Service (NHS), a report revealed on Saturday (April 6).

The Times newspaper said a survey by the Royal College of Ophthalmologists (RCO) found tens of thousands of elderly people are left struggling to see because of an NHS cost-cutting drive that relies on them dying before they can qualify for cataract surgery.

The survey has found that the NHS has ignored instructions to end cataract treatment rationing in defiance of official guidance two years ago.

The RCO said its survey has found 62 per cent of eye units retain policies that require people's vision to have deteriorated below a certain point before surgery is funded[.]

Ah, yes, socialized medicine National Health Service highly paid bureaucrats saving money by denying medical treatment, hoping the patient dies instead of medically knowledgeable personnel trying to improve a patient's life.  This is the medical system that president-wannabe Bernie Sanders of Vermont wants to bring to our shores, as does honors economics and international relations graduate, failed businessperson, and former bartender Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Bronx, N.Y.).

So tax exile Jagger had to jet to America to get what he wanted, to get his satisfaction.

Rock on, Mick, with your new American-inserted heart valve.  Your eight — at last count — children, your numerous grandchildren, and even your great-grandchild, not to mention your numerous fans, will get what they want, knowing that 75 is really, really, really not that old thanks to private medical care.  

Yeah, you can get satisfaction!