US Fares Poorly In Child Welfare Survey (4th Worst Infant Mortality Rate)

[OhioChick]

Source: AP

US Infant Mortality Fourth-Worst

2:30 pm EDT September 1, 2009

PARIS -- America has some of the industrial world's worst rates of infant mortality, teenage pregnancy and child poverty, even though it spends more per child than better-performing countries such as Switzerland, Japan and the Netherlands, a new survey indicates.

The OECD, a Paris-based watchdog of industrialized nations, urged the United States to shift more of its public spending to its youngest children, under the age of six, to improve their health and educational performance.

The report released Tuesday, "Doing Better for Children," marks the first time the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has reported on child well-being within its 30 member countries.

The U.S. spends an average of $140,000 per child, well over the OECD average of $125,000. But this spending is skewed heavily toward older children between 12 and 17, the OECD survey showed.

Read more: http://www.newsnet5.com/health/20665216/detail.html

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Terrible.

[ihavenobias]

1. Nah, it can't be true.

The US is perfect.

;)

[valerief]

2. Woo hoo! We're not the worst! We're not the worst! We're not the worst!

Wait. That's nothing to be proud of. In fact, that's something to be ashamed of. Why isn't our Congress ashamed?

[chollybocker]

3. 'Is our children breathing?'

[Egnever]

4. Hard to do when the doctors cant practice thier love

[OhioChick]

5. ......

:rofl:

[NBachers]

6. Yer on yer own, kid . . .

an' it's still gonna cost you money

[WriteDown]

7. Infant mortality is tough to quantify...

Each country uses very different criteria for defining a "live" birth which makes the statistic vary widely. We had a poster who worked specifically with infant mortality give us a very detailed breakdown once.

As far as the other statistics go, I don't know about those.

[dialecticianDU]

8. Fourth worst.. that would be 27th of 30.

Anyway you dice or slice it, we are not in the top ten. We are far from the best as some crazies would have us believe. In a profit oriented health care system, we are not getting our dollar's worth. Health care should be treated as a right that all Americans deserve and not as a privilege for those who can afford it.

[burrowowl]

9. K&R

I gave an idiot teabagger stats for infant mortality in U$ and she replied: "It is because of abortions!", I said no, stats are for live births and it is because of poor pre-natal care!

[troubledamerican]

10. Hey! Would you rather be CANADA or something?

They're communist, you should know.

[SkyDaddy7]

11. I guess this helps "No Child Left Behind"

The more that can't live past child birth the less that can be left behind in our crumbling education system.

This is SAD beyond words...If we had a thinking country folks would understand this is a Republican Legacy but they are to busy getting drunk and screaming at Town Hall meetings.

[LynnTheDem]

12. You can't take the truth, America! So keep your eyes closed, and thump your chests

whilst chanting "We're #1! We're #1!".

Actually facing the truth and doing something about it...that takes courage.

[raccoon]

13. If we work at it, maybe next year we can be #1! :sarcasm:

Rec, rec, rec, rec, rec

[Odin2005]

14. So how good that unregulated free market works?

:sarcasm:

[denem]

15. RTFA "The parents in Europe aren't as poor. They have universal health care"

"Most of what we spend is for health care, so there is less money to spend on income support programs, to keep the incomes of the poor up. We do spend highly on education -- but it's off the charts on health care," (Timothy Smeeding) said by telephone from the United States.

Some European countries have public preschools and day cares, for example."

[fascisthunter]

16. right wingers and corpocrats should be so proud!

:sarcasm:

[Vidar]

17. Well that just bolsters our real talent--killing people.