Are Americans life expectancy and infant-mortality rates as bad as Moore says?
They’re well below average. Defenders of for-profit medicine point out that much of the problem is social justice rather than medical, since U.S. rates are worst among minorities and those with low incomes. Even so, Americans ranked 40th in 2005 with 6.4 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, nearly double the rates of France and Iceland. White infants alone wouldn’t make the top 30. Raw death rates aren’t as useful as an OCED stat that asks, how many deaths would ideal health care have prevented? The U.S. tied for 15th out of 19 countries in 9-year-old data, 53 percent behind France. Costs are too high, but aren’t most Americans happy with health care quality? Health Affairs found 40 percent of Americans satisfied with their health care system in 2000. Seven countries were over 70 percent. Polling suggests the numbers haven’t improved. In a 2004 Commonwealth Fund survey, patients ranked U.S. doctors last among the five English-speaking countries for listening, explaining and spending en
