The problem with infant mortality figures is that different countries measure them differently. There are cases (e.g. very premature births) that the US considers a live birth (with a high risk of mortality) while other countries consider them miscarriages and hence don't count them in infant mortality.
There have been attempts made to correct for these discrepancies. They end up accounting for a large fraction (but not all) of the difference in infant mortality rates, if I recall correctly.
Most of the rest of the effect is that premature births that everyone considers "births" have a higher prevalence in the US (for various reasons, not all of which are clear). Premature births have higher mortality, obviously.
1) Birth defects. I wonder how much of this has to do with differences in abortion availability and again differences in definition of "birth". Many other countries count a child that dies within some number of days after birth from birth defects as a stillbirth, not an infant mortality event.
2) SUID (aka SIDS) is a huge contributor in the US. In the US this is highly concentrated in ehthnic groups that are largely missing in the comparison countries. Why that is is a good question, but makes this comparison less apples-to-apples.
To know where you'd want to be you want to know the outcomes for your specific demographic in the different countries, which is not something that gets reported very much...
The bit you quoted does not negate my two points about the data in that article.
But just to be very clear, Connecticut is cited as having an infant mortality rate that is slightly above the comparison country rates. Note that those countries were picked for a comparison because they have the 6 lowest mortality rates in Europe. [1]
Anyway, Connecticut is maybe somewhat similar to the comparison countries in terms of ethnic group demographics (mostly negating my point (2)) and has a more expansive definition of "infant mortality" than those countries last I checked, which is part of my point (1).
Mississippi, at the other end of the spectrum, has a vastly different ethnic makeup, has much worse abortion availability (increasing the number of babies with birth defects carried to term). And still has the more expansive definition of "infant mortality".
Now I'm not saying that it's a good thing that Mississippi has higher rates of SUID/SIDS. And I'm not saying limited abortion availability for cases when the child wouldn't survive is good. But I am saying that drawing conclusions about US healthcare here, as opposed to other societal factors, requires apples-to-apples comparison. And drawing conclusions about outcomes for a specific case (specific family) requires understanding whether those societal factors apply to it.
Or to put it another way, families that are willing to do an abortion when told their child, if carried to term, would not live more than a few months will have a lower infant mortality rate than families that are not willing to do said abortion.
One other thing which _is_ mentioned in the study itself but not in the article: "survival rates among preterm infants in the US were found to be very similar to those of the same European countries". Please model that with the "the US just sucks" model.
[1] The numbers in the actual study: Connecticut has an estimated FTIMR of 1.29 with a 95% confidence interval of 1.08 - 1.53; note that they don't have an actual hard number for reasons I haven't figured out yet. The six European countries involved are Austria, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland. Their numbers range from 0.97 to 1.24 according to the study.
Americans have the worst Health outcomes while spending the most by far out of all developed nations. Your libertarian shtick can't get you out of that one.
"Asian-Americans" in the US have a greater life expectancy than Japanese in Japan. "Latinos" in the US have a greater life expectancy than Swiss in Switzerland. "Whites" in Minnesota have a greater life expectancy than Canadians in Canada. It's not that simple.
My country (Uruguay) is the total opposite, it has some nasty warts, but socialized basic medicine + the option of purchasing better healthcare if wanted seems like a much better system.
The downvote brigade is out in force today. Truly disgusting how the vast majority of those SV are either left wing SJW types or "da free market cures all ills" nuts. Diversity of ideas is nonexistent.
Also the US develops most of the drugs used by those other countries. IF Drug companies charged UK prices in America, they would not be profitable. Someone has to pay the bill for drug development. In this case, it's the US.
>The US has higher cancer survival rates than Europe
First of all that source is from a pseudo-intellectual religious journal and carries little to no weight in my opinion, even if it did they admit that those numbers are differentiated by early screening in the US and this has little to do with treatment quality, such a statement on quality would need to control for this difference in screening.
>Also the US develops most of the drugs used by those other countries. IF Drug companies charged UK prices in America, they would not be profitable. Someone has to pay the bill for drug development. In this case, it's the US.
Only 5 of the top 10 largest Pharmaceutical companies are American and 3 of the top 5 are European so this statement is just not true.
Your quaint views on Economics are obviously libertarian, in the failed American political party sense, and frankly the data is not on your side.
The equivalent would be saying that I met some racists in a trailer park in upstate New York so therefore New York City is obviously a backwards racist podunk town...
100K is near entry level for tech salaries in Austin so there is absolutely no chance you would clear 400K at a similar job in the valley. You are living in a dream.
I was making up numbers. The actual average salaries are irrelevant to the argument that "absolute more-pocket-money is still absolute more-pocket-money."
It might not be true that SV is the place to go if you want the absolute most pocket money (or, again, money-to-send-home-to-your-family-in-another-country), but I'm pretty certain it is if you're willing to live out of your car.
The actual calculation of where you should live to get the most pocket money is probably available at any Effective Altruist forum. "Earning to give" and all that.
The point is that those few thousand represent outliers. How many engineers work in the Valley or in the US? 400K puts you in the vaunted top 1% for the entire country.
Boy you've bought into the Silicon Valley delusion fully haven't you. Lol, so many people on HN are shockingly ignorant of anything outside of their Uber-Liberal SWE bubble.
