U.S. Infant Mortality Is Inexcusable

Last Wednesday, more than 200 people carrying red and white umbrellas participated in a silent march in Fort Worth (see picture). Their purpose was to raise awareness of the high infant mortality rate in Tarrant County.

A baby under one year of age dies every other day in Tarrant County. Various projects have been tried over the years, and yet the rate remains high. Officials are at a loss to explain why. Could it be that our health care system is not nearly as good as Republicans would have us believe?

Tarrant County has an infant mortality rate of 6.9 deaths for every 1000 babies. That's shockingly high for a large city in an industrialized country. But sadly, it's pretty much in line with the rest of Texas (6.4) and the United States (6.3). How can this be in a country that spends a larger portion of its Gross National Product (GNP) on medical care than any other industrialized nation?

How is it if we have the best medical care in the world, and spend more on health care than anyone else, that 32 countries have a lower infant mortality rate than the United States? And isn't it odd that most (if not all) of those 32 countries have some form of government-run single-payer health insurance?

Sounds to me like "socialized medicine" works better than our own helter-skelter and badly broken system. Those 32 nations spend less on health care, and yet they get better results. That's because only the rich get our "great health care", while everybody else scrambles to get as much as they can afford. In the countries with "socialized medicine", everybody has a right to and gets decent health care.

Here are the top 33 countries in infant mortality. Read it and be embarrassed, especially if you are opposed to real health care reform in this country.

1. Iceland..........2.9
2. Singapore..........3.0
3. Japan..........3.2
4. Sweden..........3.2
5. Norway..........3.3
6. Hong Kong..........3.7
7. Finland..........3.7
8. Czech Republic..........3.8
9. Switzerland..........4.1
10. South Korea..........4.1
11. Belgium..........4.2
12. France..........4.2
13. Spain..........4.2
14. Germany..........4.3
15. Denmark..........4.4
16. Austria..........4.4
17. Australia..........4.4
18. Luxembourg..........4.5
19. Netherlands..........4.7
20. Israel..........4.7
21. Slovenia..........4.8
22. United Kingdom..........4.8
23. Canada...........4.8
24. Ireland..........4.9
25. Italy..........5.0
26. Portugal..........5.0
27. New Zealand..........5.0
28. Cuba..........5.1
29. Channel Islands..........5.2
30. Brunei..........5.5
31. Cyprus..........5.9
32. New Caledonia..........6.1
33. UNITED STATES..........6.3