We should be ashamed. We should be angry.

What kind of a country do we want to be?

For some time now, we have been learning about the steady decline in the welfare of children in the United States.  20% of children now live in poverty, schools are often failing them, health care has been difficult to access, immunizations are down, families are stressed,  and now we are informed in an extensive new study that the newborn death rate in the United States is now higher than in 40 other countries including Malaysia, Cuba and Poland. Our previous ranking was 29.

The great tragedy here is that many of these deaths can be prevented, with improved access to appropriate medical care, leadership for effective public health education, prenatal care and parental education and support.

Access to basic health care for all needs to begin first with our children. And it is the responsibility of all of us to step in, when parents are unable to. Yes, this is a moral issue, but also in our general self interest. The well being of today's children determines our future. 

Our society is pursuing a self destructive course by failing to provide all of our children with access to good health, education and a nurturing environment to grow up in, while at the same time we indebt them by failing to pay our bills. We should be ashamed. We should be angry. This is why we need health care for all in this country. This is not the rich against the poor. All of us in these United States of America must compete against the world. There is no valid reason why our children should be handicapped in their start in life compared to those in Malaysia, Cuba and Poland. There is no  good way to spin this.

WE'RE NUMBER 41! WE'RE NUMBER 41! Does that sound right to you? And we pay more than anywhere else.

These are the countries where a baby has a better chance of living in the first critical months of life:

Luxembourg
San Marino
Iceland
Japan
Singapore
Slovenia
Sweden
Andorra
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Ireland
Italy
Monaco
Norway
Spain
Australia
Austria
Belgium
Estonia
Israel
Netherlands
New Zealand
Portugal
Switzerland
Brunei Darussalam
Canada
Croatia
Cuba
Hungary
Lithuania
Poland
Republic of Korea
United Kingdom
Malaysia
Malta
Serbia
Slovakia
Chile
Latvia
Montenegro