Nothing to See Here, Move Along

A exemplar of decline


Compared to civilized countries, this is grim.

In today's episode of, the continued descent of the United States into what Molly Ivins called, "United States is the Texas of the advanced countries.," we discover that maternal mortality has hit a level not seen since 1965.

By way or perspective, 1965 was the first year for both Medicaid and Medicare.

So the past 50 years of austerity and hostility to social welfare programs, basically every President after Nixon, has left us back where we were before Lyndon Johnson's Great Society.

Maternal deaths surged to the highest rate in nearly 60 years, data showed, exacerbating a yearslong trend that has made the U.S. the most dangerous place among high-income countries to give birth.

The number of women who died during pregnancy or shortly after rose 40% to 1,205 in 2021, compared with 861 in 2020 and 754 in 2019, the National Center for Health Statistics said Thursday. The increase pushed the maternal-mortality rate to 33 deaths per 100,000 live births, the highest since 1965, compared with 24 in 2020 and 20 in 2019.

Covid-19 and disruptions during the pandemic added to pressure from factors including cardiovascular problems and healthcare disparities that have worsened maternal health in recent years, doctors and health officials said.

………

Maternal-death rates are higher in the U.S. than in any other high-income country. The rates in France, the U.K. and Canada were eight, 10 and 11 deaths per 100,000 live births respectively in 2020, according to the World Health Organization. Maternal-mortality rates in the U.S. rose 78% between 2000 and 2020, while dropping in most other countries, the WHO said.

This is not some sort of accident. This is a choice that we have made as a society.

We are sacrificing out mothers, and our infants to the false God capitalism.