The United States is 41st for infant mortality rate, with 6.3 babies of 1,000 born dying this year, so far. Big deal.
The Congressional Budget office released this statement in August in response to the lower-than-others infant mortality rate of the U.S.
Problems of definition and measurement, however, hamper cross-national comparisons of health statistics.
Alternative measures of infant mortality may provide better information but cannot completely compensate for differences among countries in the overall rates of reporting of adverse pregnancy outcomes.
For example, very premature births are more likely to be included in birth and mortality statistics in the U.S. than in several other industrialized countries that have lower infant mortality rates.
Dr. Bernadine Healy pointed out last year in U.S. News & World Report, "It's shaky ground to compare U.S. infant mortality with reports from other countries. The U.S. counts all births as live if they show any sign of life, regardless of prematurity or size. This includes what many other countries report as stillbirths." So U.S. infant mortality figures are inflated precisely because of the heroic efforts of U.S. doctors to save the lives of more infants.
But liberals and other high minded individuals constantly use the infant mortality statistic to say, and thereby somehow prove, the medical facilities for the U.S. are deficient, and that the U.S. needs socialized medicine, like Cuba, to solve the problem.
Peter Nuhn, writer of the NoGodBlog.com, a site devoted by an atheist for atheists, says this about socialized medicine:
"The congressmen and women who will be voting on this bill all receive socialized medicine provided by our taxes. The military and veterans all receive socialized medicine provided by our taxes."
Your daddy and mommy, granddaddy and grandmama receive socialized medicine once they turn 65. So why can't newborns of poor women? Remember, these children cannot even live past their first birthday, let alone make it all the way to 65 for Medicare.
Between Canada, France and Britain - the three countries whose "socialized" medicine system we're most often compared to - we have the lowest life expectancy, the highest infant-mortality rate and the fewest hospital beds per 1,000 people.
This coming from Pierre Tristam in an article supporting socialized medicine.
The simple fact of the matter is that infant mortality rate and socialized medicine in the United States just does not go together.
In Singapore, the country with the highest infant mortality rate, 2.3 infants die out of every 1,000 born. Apply that to the United States and 7,000 infants do not die. That's statistically insignificant. Any number of children under 10 per 1,000 makes the infant mortality rate less than 1 percent.
As many point out, the United States has a different indicator of infant mortality rate, there is no standard definition between countries.
It's like saying European basketball teams are better because there is more scoring in the games.
Basically, the United States should not look at infant mortality rate as something to use to conclude that the health care system is not working.
Infant mortality rate, at this point, is insignificant.
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1 comments
2. "there is no standard definition between countries" - Yes, there is, the WHO definition which is being applied across a large number of countries, incl. all of Europe and the US
3. You call a reduction of 7,000 dead babies per year insignificant? Insignificant? Wow. Tell that to the parents.