As President Obama said at the Newtown, Connecticut memorial service for the children murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School, “Caring for our Children. If we don׳t get that right, we don׳t get anything right.”

So do we take good care of our children? If you use actual facts, instead of fantasy, ideology or theology, it is pretty clear that while individual parents struggle against all odds working multiple jobs to protect and nurture their children, as a society the answer must be: No. It is a horrible truth, and I expect most people would be resistant to that conclusion, using their own intentions for their own children as their measure. But when we stand before ourselves, naked for just a moment of our illusions, facts tell us something very different.

Start at the beginning, with infant mortality. How likely is it that an American baby will survive birth? We are the richest country in the world, and we spend more, so very much more, on healthcare than any other country on Earth. Yet the data says there is no correlation between money expended and outcome. Two years ago I […]