please welcome to the program sheri fink. (applause) thank you for joining us.ive days at memorial. it involves a hospital in new orleans. >> yes. >> jon: after katrina t is perhaps the darkest book, i had to read lord. flies after this to regain my love of humanity. >> i guess you haven't read my first book about a hospital in the genocide. >> jon: is that your first book. >> yeah so this is lighter. (laughter) >> jon: can't you write about just like, i don't know a mumps outbreak. this was i kept waiting for a hero to emerge in this story at the hospital, whether it be a planner or responder or doctor. and they don't ever seem to emerge. >> there's no one hero and there's no one villain here. >> jon: yes. >> yes, and if i have one thing to tell people about this, is be prepared for everything to fail in a disaster. an that's why the book looks a lot at like individual decisions, what happens when everything fails. because preparedness response is all about infrastructure, organizations and individuals. and this is really like how can we be more prepared. >> jo

sheri fink, doctor sheri fink wrote about the hospital in new orleans and i'm wondering if you are aware that situation and how you would respond to that in light of what you have told us today. >> okay, so to give some context, this hospital in new orleans has a number of situations going on. but a number of locations around the country are suffering such extensive deficits and debts that hospitals are closing among the sort of safety net group and among some private hospitals we see sort of a cherry picking phenomenon, which is related to this post during the recession and cents. i did not talk a lot about health care and health care insurance and how that is sort of affected during the recessionary periods. but i will say there are very interesting studies back in the 1990s of the portion of health that we could buy the we give everyone universal health care insurance and if everyone had a fantastic perfect surgery and so on. how much could we improve the u.s. health care? without commenting particularly and i don't have any details of their financial situation. but from what i unders

cheers and applause) >> jon: welcome to the daily show, my name is jon stewart, good show, my guest sheri finkthe author of five days at memorial, five da