President Obama hails Senate health bill support

• US President Barack Obama has welcomed the passage of his healthcare bill through the Senate, saying it paves the way for "real" reform.
• The bill, which passed with 60 to 39 votes, aims to cover 31 million uninsured Americans.
• This will be the most important piece of social legislation since Social Security passed in the 1930s," he said.
• It must still be reconciled with similar legislation passed by the House of Representatives.
  Mr Obama said: "We are now finally poised to deliver on the promise of real, meaningful health insurance reform that will bring additional security and stability to the American people."
• He described the measures as "the toughest measures ever taken to hold the insurance industry accountable".
• Among various reforms, Mr Obama said the insurance companies will no longer be able to deny coverage with a pre-existing condition nor end coverage when a person becomes ill.
  "With today's vote, we are now incredibly close to making health insurance reform a reality in this country," the president said.
• But he said it would be a challenge to "finish the job" of reform.
• For the sake of our citizens, our economy and our future, let's make 2010 the year we finally reform healthcare in the United States of America."
• The process of reconciling the two bills is expected to begin in January and will require further tough negotiations.
• Once that has been done - and the process could still be derailed by last-minute changes of heart among senators - Mr Obama will be able to sign the measure into law.
• The bill's passage in an early morning vote on Christmas Eve follows months of political wrangling and 24 days of debate in the Senate chamber.
• Opposition Republicans say the legislation is expensive, authoritarian and a threat to civil liberties, and accuse the Democrats of rushing it through.
• Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell said the bill's difficult history highlighted its failings.
• The most obvious problem with the bill before us is that it doesn't do what it was supposed to do. The one test for any bill was whether it would lower costs. This bill fails that test.
• It's also clear that even many of the people on this side who are going to support this bill don't like it - otherwise Democratic leaders wouldn't have had such a tough time rounding up the votes."
• The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that efficiency savings made as a result of the Senate healthcare reform bill will cut the federal deficit by $132bn (£83bn) over 10 years, but critics say the predicted savings may never materialise.
• As a nation, the US spent some $2.2tn (£1.36tn) on healthcare in 2007. That amounts to 16.2% of GDP, nearly twice the average of other rich, industrialised countries.
• As costs have spiralled, millions of Americans have found themselves unable to afford health insurance and the cost to the government of providing care for the poor and elderly has risen hugely.

Mad Max - most profitable film

• The Sums: George Miller's dystopian road flick isn't one that immediately springs to mind when debating most profitable films, but it actually loitered around the Guinness Book for a good long while.
• Bringing in over $100m worldwide is - well, certainly WAS - a hugely impressive feat back in the day. Even more so when making it cost just $400k, Australian. That's probably about what James Cameron has earmarked for in-trailer slipper allowance on one of his shoots.
• Why So Profitable? With its defiantly niche steampunk overtones, Antipodean roots and only a pre-fame Mel Gibson silhouetted on the 3-colour poster, it's hard to argue that it wasn't simply down to the film being, y'know, awesome. This one's a relatively rare case of a B-movie going global on merit alone. Hurrah.
• Who Got Rich? George Miller raised the money for Mad Max by working as an Emergency Room Doctor. He raised the money for Mad Max 2 by asking Warner Brothers.
• Though the film had a limited run in the United States and earned only $8 million there, it did very well elsewhere around the world and went on to earn $100 million worldwide.Since it was independently financed with a reported budget of just $400,000 AUD.
• It was a major financial success. For thirty years, the movie held a record in Guinness Book of Records as the highest profit-to-cost ratio of a motion picture, conceding the record only in 2009 to Paranormal Activity. The film was awarded three Australian Film Institute Awards in 1979 (for editing, sound, and musical score).
• Both New Zealand and Sweden initially banned the film.
• George Miller was a medical doctor in Victoria, Australia, working in a hospital emergency room, where he saw many injuries and deaths of the types depicted in the movie. While in residency at a Melbourne hospital, he met amateur film maker Byron Kennedy at a summer film school in 1971. The duo produced the short film Violence in the Cinema, Part 1, which was screened at a number of film festivals and won several awards. Eight years later, the duo created Mad Max, with the assistance of first time screenwriter James McCausland (who appears in the film as the bearded man in an apron in front of the diner).
• Miller believed that audiences would find his violent story to be more believable if set in a bleak, dystopic future. The film was shot over a period of twelve weeks in Australia, between December 1978 and February 1979, in and around Melbourne. Many of the car-chase scenes for the original Mad Max were filmed near the town of Lara, just north of Geelong. The movie was shot with a widescreen anamorphic lens, the first Australian film to use one.