Two Women, Two Cancers, Two Health-Care Systems

[welshTerrier2]

the article below screams out how bad our healthcare system has become ... among other things, i would like to suggest the idea that we completely eliminate "group" plans ... each and every citizen needs to have all necessary and reasonable health coverage ... you should not have to qualify to be in any special group to receive coverage ... we need to disconnect the association between employment and adequate health coverage ... making workers dependent on their employers for health coverage turns them into slaves of the corporate machine ... let's look for a way to return common human decency to our healthcare system ... let's make health coverage a national right of all citizens and permanent residents ... profit, greed and bean counting have no right to interfere with our humanity as a society ...

source: http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1229-34.htm

I moved back to the United States with my Canadian wife and two small boys after living 15 years in Toronto and Ottawa. U.S. health care now looks both expensive and scary, leading me to conclude that we'd do better with an entirely different system.

Nowhere has this been put in sharper relief than in the story of two colleagues. Struck in March with cancer, an American colleague worried about death, insurance loss and bankruptcy. In contrast, a Canadian colleague and cancer victim had only her disease to fight. <skip>

Compared to the United States, Canada has much lower infant-mortality rates and a longer life expectancy, according to data from the World Health Organization. Canadian women get just as many mammograms, for example, as do American women. This is achieved despite spending far less per person on health care -- 10 percent of per capita GDP in Canada goes to health care versus 15-plus percent in the United States, according to WHO research.

After 40 years of private health care in America and 15 years of Canada's Medicare, I'll take the latter. But of course, I can't; it's not available here. I love my country but not the private health-care system that abandons many people and worries even more.

Few Americans know that every other industrial country in the world has a health-care system more or less like Canada's. I think even fewer realize that we do, too -- it's called (U.S.) Medicare. The system that boosted the health of Americans 65 and older is similar to Canada's system for everyone. They're both "public, not-for-profit, single-payer" systems with low overhead costs. So why not extend Medicare to every American? <skip>

[MuseRider]

1. I agree with you but one point to pick,

the United States reports infant mortality differently than other countries and this accounts for at least some of the reporting about our high infant mortality rates. Every fetus that even attempts to draw breath, even pre-viable fetuses are considered live birth if they attempt to draw a breath. I believe in other countries the fetus has to be a viable age to actually be counted as a live birth.

Now that I said that things could have changed. My husband has been retired for 3 years but he was a pathologist and had to report these things. So if it has changed my apologies.

[welshTerrier2]

2. good info ... thanks ...

always glad to have added clarity from those in the know ... thanks for the correction ...

of course, one might look beyond mere infant mortality statistics to understand how many American children are living in poverty ...

will we ever put our humanity ahead of our fears of "tax and spend" labels ???

[tocqueville]

3. USA 29th in the world, without counting fetuses

with infant mortality you count on babies from day 0 to age 1. Abortion has nothing to do with it.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________

But while the effect of excess weight is largely still to come, the infant mortality rate is a trauma being felt now. More than 75 infants die each day across the USA, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The doctors behind the new study say the deaths are a sad reminder that the nation is not as healthy as it can be.

"Have we gone as far as we can go? Have we reached the limits of what human beings can achieve?" asks Reed Tuckson of United Health Foundation, a non-profit health advocacy group. "When we compare our infant mortality rate against other nations, it lets us know that we have much more distance to travel."

On average, seven of every 1,000 American babies die before age 1. The USA ranks 29th in the world in infant mortality.

The rate is directly related to mothers having access to both prenatal and pediatric care. But it also tells officials that other maternal risk factors lurk, including age, obesity, smoking, infection and stress.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2004-11-07-state-health_x.htm

[tocqueville]

4. More facts, obviously environmental factors the culprit

INFANT MORTALITY

In 2002, 27,970 infants died before their first birthday. The infant mortality rate was 7.0 deaths per 1,000 live births, representing a small but significant increase from the previous year, the first such increase in 40 years. The leading causes of infant mortality include birth defects, low birth weight and prematurity, and pregnancy complications. Approximately 25 percent of the increase in infant mortality is due to multiple births.1

The rapid decline in infant mortality, which began in the mid-1960s, slowed among both Blacks and Whites during the 1980s. Major advances, including the approval of synthetic surfactants and the recommendation that infants be placed on their backs when sleeping, may have contributed to a renewed decline during the 1990s. In 2002, the leading cause of infant mortality was congenital malformations, deformations and chromosomal abnormalities, which accounted for 20.2 percent of infant deaths.

Based on preliminary data, mortality among non-Hispanic Black infants remained stable at 13.9 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2002. The rate of 5.8 deaths per 1,000 live births among non-Hispanic White infants represented a slight increase over the rate in 2001. The infant mortality rate for non-Hispanic Black infants continues to be 2.5 times that of non-Hispanic White infants. Although the trend in infant mortality rates among non-Hispanic Blacks and non-Hispanic Whites has generally declined throughout the 20th century, the proportional discrepancy between the non-Hispanic Black and non-Hispanic White rates remains largely unchanged.

http://www.mchb.hrsa.gov/mchirc/chusa_04/pages/0406im.htm

[MuseRider]

5. They are considered live birth

if they attempt to draw breath or try to wiggle one toe. It does not matter if they only live 1 minute after that. After they are born, no matter what, if they do anything that looks like an individual attempt to live outside the womb they are no longer considered fetuses at that point but infants.

[tocqueville]

6. the comparison is the same for ALL countries

Definition of Mortality, infant

Mortality, infant: The death of an infant before his or her first birthday.

The infant mortality rate is, by definition, the number of children dying under a year of age divided by the number of live births that year. The infant mortality rate is also called the infant death rate.

The infant mortality rate is an important measure of the well-being of infants, children, and pregnant women because it is associated with a variety of factors, such as maternal health, quality and access to medical care, socioeconomic conditions, and public health practices.

In the United States, about two-thirds of infant deaths occur in the first month after birth and are due mostly to health problems of the infant or the pregnancy, such as preterm delivery or birth defects. About one-third of infant deaths occur after the first month and are influenced greatly by social or environmental factors, such as exposure to cigarette smoke or problems with access to health care.

The infant mortality rate in the US, which was 12.5 per 1,000 live births in 1980, fell to 9.2 per 1,000 live births in 1990. However, in 1999 it was reported that "Over the past 8 years, the death rate among black infants has remained nearly 2.5 times that among white infants." (Pediatrics 104: 1229-1246, 1999.)

http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=14274

the cases you name must be extremely rare

[MuseRider]

7. Well, tell you what.

My husband is sitting right here. As deputy coroner and a pathologist who was required to process the information I trust that his information is correct. I don't want to argue with you and I have no intention of doing so. These were not rare cases, it happens all the time, ALL the time. In other countries at that time a fetus that was not viable was considered an abortus and that is the reason the statistics were the way they were.

Whatever, it is still way too high for our supposedly sophisticated medical system.

[tocqueville]

8. the differences in measuring that might occur lower the infant

mortality rates in certain OECD countries but raise the PERINATAL deaths in the same countries.
(Perinatal mortality only includes deaths between the foetal viability (28 weeks gestation or 1000g) and the end of the 7th day after delivery). So different ways of counting cannot explain for example the big leap between a country like Sweden and the US.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant_mortality

[China_cat]

9. One thing that story forgot to mention

about the US health care system and insurance through your employer. One person with cancer can skew the group dynamics of the health insurance, driving up premiums for the employer or even cancelling the participation altogether. It's one of the reasons someone being diagnosed with a catastrophic illness will find themselves out of a job.