Posted 6:04 PM by Gene

MEDICAL SPIN:

Infant mortality strongly correlates with low birth weight and preterm births, both of which are likelier among teen mothers. And the U.S. has nearly three times Canada’s rate of teen births, and about seven times Japan’s and Sweden’s. If you break down infant mortality rates in the U.S. even further, by race, you find that both “the pre-term infant mortality rate and the teen birth rate are considerably higher for blacks than for whites.” This means that America’s diverse ethnic mix plays against it in comparisons with more homogeneous countries. Once you factor in America’s high rate of low-weight births, an interesting statistic emerges: “If in Canada the distribution of births by birth weight was the same as in the U.S., their infant mortality rate would rise to 7.06.” Conversely, if the U.S. had Canada’s distribution of low-weight births, its infant mortality rate would drop to 5.4.

This is an outrage. What this guy named Howard (any relation to you-know-who?) says in so many words is if we massage the numbers we don't need socialized health care. I don't want socialized health care either, but dammit we should be ashamed at all the babies born out of what used to be called wedlock, and that they aren't entitled to better treatment. This kind of verbal legerdemain can only convince people we need more government health supervision, something that will help neither the poor nor the preemies.