Obama claims proud family history of service in the Soviet Army

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by snoopy369

Like I said elsewhere - call a duck a duck, and do socialized medicine ****ing properly, or don't do it at all. This half-***ed **** doesn't benefit anyone other than the politicians who use it to buy votes from soccer moms and donations from Aetna ...

Its called universal healthcare and I have to admit it works pretty well. I have no idea why the UNO ranked Slovenia below America.

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by Zkribbler


Strange. It's puzzling then that the U.S. has the shortest life expectancy in the industrialized world and the highest infant mortality rate.

Not quite true, life expetancy in Slovenia is:
76.53 years

Life expetancy in the US is:
78.06 years



I mean this really sucks, its been 17 years since the fall of communism and since we got our own country and we are still behind the US for about 18 months in life expectancy. I'm going to write to my congressman about this.



Note: GDP per capita

Slovenia 22,933
USA 45,845

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by Zkribbler


Strange. It's puzzling then that the U.S. has the shortest life expectancy in the industrialized world and the highest infant mortality rate.

The infant mortality rate correlates very strongly with and is among the best predictors of state failure.[1] IMR is also a useful indicator of a country's level of health or development, and is a component of the physical quality of life index. Some claim that the method of calculating IMR may vary between countries based on the way they define a live birth. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines a live birth as any born human being who demonstrates independent signs of life, including breathing, voluntary muscle movement, or heartbeat. [Some claim] that some countries only count as live births cases where an infant breathes at birth, which makes their reported IMR numbers somewhat lower and raises their rates of perinatal mortality.[citation needed]

In order to minimize this problem, UNICEF uses a statistical methodology to account for these reporting differences. "UNICEF compiles infant mortality country estimates derived from all sources and methods of estimation obtained either from standard reports, direct estimation from micro data sets, or from UNICEF’s yearly exercise. In order to sort out differences between estimates produced from different sources, with different methods, UNICEF developed, in coordination with WHO, the WB and UNSD,2 an estimation methodology that minimize the errors embodied on each estimate and harmonize trends along time.3 Since the estimates are not necessarily the exact values used as input for the model, they are often not recognized as the official U5MR estimates used at the country level. However, as mentioned before, these estimates minimize errors and maximize the consistency of trends along time." [1]

While the United States reports every case of infant mortality, it has been suggested that some other developed countries do not. A 2006 article in U.S. News & World Report claims that "First, it's shaky ground to compare U.S. infant mortality with reports from other countries. The United States 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. In Austria and Germany, fetal weight must be at least 500 grams (1 pound) to count as a live birth; in other parts of Europe, such as Switzerland, the fetus must be at least 30 centimeters (12 inches) long. In Belgium and France, births at less than 26 weeks of pregnancy are registered as lifeless. And some countries don't reliably register babies who die within the first 24 hours of birth. Thus, the United States is sure to report higher infant mortality rates. For this very reason, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which collects the European numbers, warns of head-to-head comparisons by country." [2] However, all of the countries named adopted the WHO definition in the late 1980s or early 1990s.[2]

Historically, until the 1990s Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union did not count as a live birth or as an infant death extremely premature infants (less than 1,000 g, less than 28 weeks gestational age, or less than 35 cm in length) that were born alive (breathed, had a heartbeat, or exhibited voluntary muscle movement) but failed to survive for at least 7 days.[3] Although such extremely premature infants typically accounted for only about 0.005 of all live-born children, their exclusion from both the numerator and the denominator in the reported IMR led to an estimated 22%-25% lower reported IMR.[4] In some cases, too, perhaps because hospitals or regional health departments were held accountable for lowering the IMR in their catchment area, infant deaths that occurred in the 12th month were "transferred" statistically to the 13th month (i.e., the second year of life), and thus no longer classified as an infant death.[5]

Another challenge to comparability is the practice of counting frail or premature infants who die before the normal due date as miscarriages (spontaneous abortions) or those who die during or immediately after childbirth as stillborn. Therefore, the quality of a country's documentation of perinatal mortality can matter greatly to the accuracy of its infant mortality statistics. This point is reinforced by the demographer Ansley Coale, who finds dubiously high ratios of reported stillbirths to infant deaths in Hong Kong and Japan in the first 24 hours after birth, a pattern that is consistent with the high recorded sex ratios at birth in those countries and suggests not only that many female infants who die in the first 24 hours are misreported as stillbirths rather than infant deaths but also that those countries do not follow WHO recommendations for the reporting of live births and infant deaths.[6]

Another seemingly paradoxical finding is that when countries with poor medical services introduce new medical centers and services, instead of declining the reported IMRs often increase for a time. The main cause of this is that improvement in access to medical care is often accompanied by improvement in the registration of births and deaths. Deaths that might have occurred in a remote or rural area and not been reported to the government might now be reported by the new medical personnel or facilities. Thus, even if the new health services reduce the actual IMR, the reported IMR may increase.

The unexpectedly high rate of infant mortality in the USA is a commonly repeated "mis-spoke". This is common knowledge for me cos of the field in which I work but I thought I'd provide a WIKI summmary.

I'll let someone else explain the other one.

[DinoDoc]

You know I had hopped this thread would attract Serb.

[Heraclitus]

Noting prevents people who can afford better healthcare from getting it.

I mean private clinics are not outlawed.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Heraclitus
Noting prevents a people who can afford better healthcare from getting it.

I mean private clinics are not outlawed.

Canadians say otherwise.

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Canadians say otherwise.

Then they have a stupid system.


I can't see why you would want to prevent rich people from finding something better if they want to, as long as they pay the taxes that support a universal healthcare system.


The only argument I can think of is one often cited in sociological theory. That if a service is used by all then the upper class via its political power ensures that the service is of good quality.

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by Heraclitus
Noting prevents a people who can....

How the hell did that get in there?

Damn, I'm going to bed before I start sounding like an Itallian...

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Heraclitus


Then they have a stupid system.


I can't see why you would want to prevent rich people from finding something better if they want to, as long as they pay the taxes that support a universal healthcare system.


The only argument I can think of is one often cited in sociological theory. That if a service is used by all then the upper class via its political power ensures that the service is of good quality.

That (the inverse actually; that the 'rich who control politics' would starve the public sytem if they were not forced to use it) and now there are two other common arguments.

One is that a private system would compete with the public one for skilled workers.

The other is that any move to private health care delivery would be 'American'. This is the one that the forces of the status quo use most effectively.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Agathon
****ing Hunter Thompson... he just killed himself so that when he was really needed by humanity people would say "I wish Hunter Thompson was alive and writing about this". He was right: once you think that Nixon was vastly preferable to the incumbent, it is basically the end of the world.

Which incumbent was that?

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by notyoueither
The other is that any move to private health care delivery would be 'American'.

Hm, I think you are right the risk the system degenerating in a central Europeane country of 2 million is not as big compared to the chances of the Canadian system being subverted by the enormus American cultural influence & market (BTW is NAFTA a common market?).

[notyoueither]

I'm right that the argument is used. I doubt the argument is anything other than fear mongering and an appeal to the darker natures of some Canadians.

NAFTA is not a common market as Euros might define it.

The borders exist for regulation (although more harmonized in some ways) and immigration. Products are the only free flowing 'units'. Even capital still has some restrictions, for instance.

[Heraclitus]

Well if you had a common market any liberalisation might cause the damage to the Canadian healtcare system.
But since it dosen't sound like one you are probably right, it does sound like fear mongering.

[Wezil]

The only argument that carries any weight with me is the competition for skilled workers.

Our current system is stupid and in desperate need of reform despite the difficulties that would present.

[Heraclitus]

But having said that would you prefer the current US or the current Canadian system?