Apres_Londee

Hi annhig, an 18 year gap is outrageous! Sheffield only? It would make me wonder about environmental contamination or something similar.

ira

TB earlier wrote,

>The last 25%, about 9 million, (about 3% of the total population) truly needs help. You could easily write each one a $10,000 check to buy insurance with money left over, for about 1/4 the proposed annual cost of the healthcare bill before the Senate currently.<

Just to round off, let's give 10 million people $10,000 ea pa. That's $1000 Billion over 10 years. That's 4x the cost per person of the current plan NOT 1/4.
.................................................. .............
MP writes,
>If some people spent more of their energy.......<
Bravo.
............................................
TB writes,
>mothers with more than 13 years education had more than twice the infant mortality of whites. Now, assuming that people with at least some college are not apt to be penniless,.....<

Never assume. You make yourself into a bigger ass than u are.

People who have to repeat the 2nd, 4th, 7th and 11th grades before being given a "certificate of attainment", have 17 years of "education".

I was willing to give you a pass after your first post. The second does show racial prejudice.

StuDudley

>>black mothers with more than 13 years education had more than twice the infant mortality of whites.<<

I might have something to do with the amount of pre-natal care that African Americans get compared to non-Hispanic Whites - which seems to me to be an arguement for health care for everyone.

Stu Dudley

iris1745

How can anyone use Iceland in a rational discussion. They only have 306 thousand people. For what it's worth. The 'infant mortality rate' is ofter used as an indicator of the level of a countries health. Richard https://www.cia.gov/library/publicat...-&regionCode=_

annhig

hi apres -

I don't know the figures for other UK cities - Sheffield was featured on Radio 4's Today programme last week which is where i heard about this statistic.

i woudl be very surprised if Sheffield is alone, or even the worst. part of it may wel be down to polution, environmental factors, etc, but these will apply in other industrialised cities too.

I'd be interested to know if the same stats have been collected for US cities - this is where a public health system comes into its own.

artsnletters

annhig, environmental inequities have also been found in the US. For example, children in poor urban neighborhoods, which often are located near industrial sites or areas with high auto pollution (for example adjacent to a freeway), have much higher rates of asthma. They also tend to live in older, unrefurbished buildings and are thus subject to higher rates of lead poisoning from old paint - which can lead to a lifetime decrease in IQ among other health dangers.

I suspect that life expectancy is lower in many, many industrial areas, due to exposure to environmental toxins both at work and at home.

tomboy

Ira- I'm ashamed of you. Absolutely. It's not racial prejudice to point out differences in races. Blacks have much more melanin in their skin than I. Is that racial prejudice?
That same website said that blacks have 30% higher infant mortality due to congenital defects. Is that racial prejudice? I've no idea why it's higher, and I certainly feel not an iota less sorry for the mothers of those infants. I'm, frankly, appalled at YOUR prejudice.

artsnletters

tomboy, the way you worded your response above did indeed give the impression that you were making a racial comment. It certainly sounded to me like you were suggesting that the only difference between black and white mothers with 13 years of education was their rate of infant mortality. And then you contrasted a country with an entirely white population to "prove your point."

If that wasn't what you were implying, then you needed to say something that indicated so.

I'm not picking a fight with you - merely stating that in this case, what you said was perhaps not what you meant.

Boy, that congenital defects number, if accurate, certainly seems to support the info I have about the greater exposure to toxins by minorities.

StuDudley

tomboy

I 100% agree with artsnletters' comments about your seemingly racial comments. I think Ira does too.

Stu Dudley

Apres_Londee

Then why are you trying to use African-American infant mortality rates to argue against universal health care?

Apres_Londee

(not you StuDudley...I'm always slow )

tomboy

Then it's the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS in the above URL) that is racist for including a statistic that shows racial differences. So if I report it to you, I'm racist, but if the New York Times or the HHS reports it to you, that's journalism. But if you think my comments were racial, you should read the text on the HHS website.

You folks have odd groundrules.

Ira: "That's $1000 Billion [$100 billion/yr] over 10 years. " that's a trillion dollars, which is what the proposed health plan is planned to cost (per the Congressional Budget Office) over the ten years (of which the first four are without payment of any benefits,so it's really the last six of the ten year span). OK, OK, it's only $894 billion ($149 billion/year), so I rounded up, live with it.

Apres_vous: I'm not arguing against universal health care. If you'll read the original post, I'm lamenting the lack of meaningful detailed data for a citizen to peruse. I don't have the facts to support an opinion either way, nor obviously does anyone else on this forum. Ira meant well by supplying 2 links, but they were to summary sites without supporting detail. As were the who and cia sites.

Arts&letters: good point about the toxins. HOWEVER, you and others did not read carefully. The HHS was for people with MORE THAN 13 years of education. I highly doubt whether this includes too many people who flunked 1st grade 12 times, as Ira suspects. Rather, the title would seem to include some college course, or at least technical school. I wouldn't have thought even ghetto living would cause 30% more defects, but if that were true, it should would make a case for remedy.

sashh

<<on the other hand lab tests can take up t 3 weeks or more for results, non emergency surgery,s could be a wait of 6 to 12 months, depending the area where you live>>

Not any more - waiting lists are down to a couple of weeks. Some tests take three weeks because you have to grow cultures and they take weeks to grow.

tomboy

Am I missing something? What has the infant mortality rate of one minority group got to do with this?

No we don't have many African Americans in Europe but we have plenty of people of African / Caribbean descent, dual heritage, immigrant populations.

Why do you think the infant mortality rate is higher? Is it because more of this group live in poorer areas and have less access to health care?

Have you considered that healthcare in Europe and the US has developed around white men? It's only in the last 30 years that any thought has been given as to why some racial groups are more likely to develop certain illnesses such as diabetes or sickle cell disease.

I worked in Oxford for a while, the doctors are almost all white and so are their patients. So are the medical students and the professors. And I saw at least one patient admitted because of something on his ECG that was a 'normal racial variant'. I.e. normal for a young black man but not normal for a young white man. (Inverted T waves if anyone is interested). While the doctors were worrying about that they were not treating him for what was wrong.

There are inequalities in health,we often know the numbers but not why those numbers exist. Or the numbers may be a result of a number of things (housing, education,culture, food).

So if African American's have higher infant mortality why is that? And what is being done about it?

artsnletters

tomboy, I'm not taking issue with the data. I'm taking issue with your characterization of it. In fact, your last post suggests you're still trying to characterize it in the same way. As a researcher with a background in social welfare, I understand that statistics are often misinterpreted, and in any event are usually only the tip of the iceberg.

ira

Hey tb,

Ditto artsn. Also please reread what I wrote.

>You folks have odd groundrules......Ira: "That's $1000 Billion ......... OK, OK, it's only $894 billion ($149 billion/year), so I rounded up, live with it.<

I was resonding to your statement, "The last 25%, about 9 million,........ You could easily write each one a $10,000 check ......... for about 1/4 the proposed annual cost of the healthcare bill before the Senate currently". Which is totally wrong.

>Ira meant well by supplying 2 links, but they were to summary sites without supporting detail.<

I have no intention of doing your homework for you. IIRC, you had claimed that you could find no information.

>you and others did not read carefully. The HHS was for people with MORE THAN 13 years of education. I highly doubt whether this includes too many people who flunked 1st grade 12 times, as Ira suspects. Rather, the title would seem to include some college course, or at least technical school.<

You are making a completely unwarranted assumption.
If one goes through the public schools from K-12 at the planned rate - it takes 13 years.
If one repeats one semester, one has more than 13 years of "education".

iris1745

sahh;<Why do you think the infant mortality rate is higher?> Percisly what you then ask. Social economic and ACCESS to health care are two reasons for higher infant moritality rates with minorities. The CDC also states there are still unexplained reasons. Richard http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db09.htm

walkinaround

i'm glad the topic of disparities with measures such as infant mortality and life expectancy came up. it's not only regional as annhig was saying but also among different communities. for example, in the uk, look at pakistani and traveller communities. their rates do not measure up to white and other communities. our system is failing them.

persimmondeb

Tomboy, it's almost certainly not a genetic propensity. Apparently the rates for African-born mothers are about the same as those for Caucasian women of similar education and income. However, it only takes a single generation for the daughters of recent immigrants from Africa to experience similar rates of infant mortality, low-birthweight, and prematurity as women of African descent whose ancestors have been here for generations. This would strongly suggest it's environmental, although there is a great deal of debate about what the actual culprit is.

tomboy

Deb: But how do we KNOW that? I want to read it myself, not just take someone's statement at face value. African immigrants also go to European countries, and gravitate toward ghettos there. Wouldn't the same trend hold true? So why would US ghettos be differnet, environmentally, than Italian ghettos, for example? If governmental studies showed a disparity of such immigrants, then I'd accept it. But how do I differentiate between data-driven fact and mere opinion?
Granted, people in both would need good health care so as not to suffer these anomalies, which is the point of my query.

ira

Hey TB,

>So why would US ghettos be differnet, environmentally, than Italian ghettos, for example?.......Granted, people in both would need good health care so as not to suffer these anomalies, which is the point of my query.<

You still don't get it, do you?

U N I V E R S A L S T A T E - S U B S I D I Z E D H E A L T H C A R E.