The illness profit system that masquerades as health care in the United States provides the worst medical care in the developed world, based on objectively verifiable social outcome data. But even within those dreadful statistics healthcare for women stands out particularly. This report is a year old, but the latest I could find, and as awful as it is, things post-Dobbs have actually gotten much worse, particularly in Republican controlled Red states. How a fertile American woman can vote Republican is beyond me. Nor do I understand why women and the men that support them are not out in the street by the millions. Someone needs to organize a weekend when throughout the country woman and men fill the roadways demanding our miserable Congress passes a national law affirming a woman’s right to control her own body.
A new study found that women in the US face the highest rates of preventable and maternal mortality when compared with women in 10 other wealthy nations.
According to data collected by the Commonwealth Fund and published Tuesday, American women have an avoidable mortality rate of 198 per 100,000, the highest of any nation included in the study. The United Kingdom had the next highest rate, at 146 per 100,000.
The US also had the highest maternal mortality rate: 23.8 deaths per 100,000 live births, more than triple the rate of any other country studied. When looking only at Black maternal mortality, the rate jumped to 55.3 deaths per 100,000 live births.
By comparison, in Norway in 2019, the last year for which data was available, there were zero maternal deaths.
“A high rate of cesarean sections, inadequate prenatal care, and elevated rates of chronic illnesses like obesity, diabetes, and heart disease may be factors contributing to the high U.S. maternal mortality rate. […]
Brittni Frederiken, Usha Ranji, Ivette Gomez, and Alina Salganicoff, - KFF - Women's Health Policy
Stephan:
As I read report after report in both the formal medical and general audience media the question that stays in my mind is did the anti-choice MAGAts understand what would happen after Dobbs? Did they realize the devastating effect it would have on OB/GYN medical care in the United States, not just in reference to abortion but female medical care in general. Did they know this and do it anyway? Did the corrupt cabal of MAGAts on the Supreme Court anticipate what has happened and just not care?
Introduction
One year ago, the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned Roe v. Wade and opened the door for states to ban or severely restrict the availability of abortion care. Today, people seeking abortion in large swaths of the country must travel to other states to get abortion services or obtain medication abortion through self-managed or other means. In many states, abortion is not banned, but laws impose gestational limits and other restrictions that limit access to abortion. This has left large parts of the U.S., particularly in the South and Southeast, without meaningful abortion access. In the states where abortion remains available under most circumstances, abortion providers have had to take on additional patients traveling to their states to get an abortion. Furthermore, the situation in many states remains uncertain, with new bans being implemented that are often followed by legal challenges creating a complicated landscape to navigate for patients and clinicians, particularly those who provide services to pregnant people.
To understand the impact of the changing abortion landscape on clinical care, KFF conducted a nationally representative survey of office-based OBGYNs practicing in the United States who spend the majority of their working hours (60% or more) in direct patient […]
Stephan A. Schwartz, Columnist - Explore - The Journal of Science and Healing
Stephan:
If you are a woman, particularly a fertile woman, and you vote Republican, you are voting against your own wellbeing. If you are a pregnant Republican woman you are voting for an increased probability of your own death. What rational person would do such a thing? This proves MAGAt women are not rational.
Thirteen years ago, after tracking what I saw as an emerging trend in American culture, I wrote in these pages, “Do you sense the schism occurring in the United States? Not just the red and blue of politics, although that comes into it. Something deeper, a shift that is producing two very different reactions. Can you feel the ground moving? The zeitgeist of one population is grounded in fear, resentment, anger and a sense of loss. It is theologically conservative, politically rigid, and exclusionist. The other population holds a sober realization that great change is coming, but also the sense that it offers at least the putative opportunity to create a more stable life-affirming culture. It is theologically and politically accommodating, and inclusionist.
“We all have a vested interest in this schism and the struggle it has produced, not only because through our choices we are its source, but because we will live with the consequences of the decisions made over the next few years. What is particularly concerning is the obsession amongst the population driven by fear with […]
Andis Robeznieks , Senior News Writer - American Medical Association
Stephan:
America’s illness profit system already the worst yet most expensive in the developed world is literally destroying itself, aided and abetted by Republican politicians. This is a huge crisis, as this American Medical Association report describes, yet except for what Biden is trying to do nothing is happening to really address it. This trend is producing medical deserts and what I see, particularly in Red states with their crazy abortion bans, are emerging medical deserts. Large areas of the country where high quality medical care will no longer be available. What do you think it will take in the United States to create single payer birthright universal healthcare? I suggest the answer is you, and tens of millions of like minded people all voting Democratic in the 2024 election. The alternative, frankly, is disaster.
There are a number of reasons for the projected physician shortage and a number of solutions to the problem have been identified—and they all have one thing in common: the need to get started right away.
“Because it can take up to a decade to properly educate and train a physician, we need to take action now to ensure we have enough physicians to meet the needs of tomorrow,” AMA President Gerald E. Harmon, MD, wrote in a recent Leadership Viewpoints column. “The health of our nation depends on it.”
As this article describes, we are probably going to have the worst El Niño in human history, and this has all kinds of implications, not only for the lifestyle of those in affected states because of weather changes but also for a wide range of economic issues. Since most Republicans in those affected states don’t believe climate change is a priority, it will be interesting to hear their whining and complaining that will come as a result of what the El Niño does. And the economic impact is going to degrade the quality of their lives in ways I don’t think they even comprehend.
The sun sets along 42nd Street as light smoke from wildfires in Canada begins to drift into the northeast on June 15, 2023, in New York City. Credit: Gary Hershorn / Getty
El Niño has arrived — and it will likely be the hottest in human history. It may already have made its presence felt in the April-May heat wave in Asia. The current heat waves in Mexico and the U.S. bear its imprint too.
In El Niño years, warmer seas in the equatorial Pacific raise global temperatures. The upcoming El Niño years will probably breach the 1.5 degrees Celsius global warming limit outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, bringing renewed flurries of weather-related disasters, including floods, drought and wildfires.
Less immediately visible will be its economic effects: El Niño is set to aggravate the failure of the prevailing growth-based economic model, with calamitous results for the world’s poor.
There are a number of reasons for the projected physician shortage and a number of solutions to the problem have been identified—and they all have one thing in common: the need to get started right away.
