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Comment by refurb | Hacker News Reader

I at least have the author credit for stating that the statistics should be taken with a grain of salt.

How is this possible? Well, remember that it may not be. The figures should be taken with a dose of skepticism.

The US actually has very generous social services when it comes to medical care for pregnant women and their babies. CHIP and Medicaid cover pregnant women up to 200% (~$30K) or sometimes 300% (~$50K) of the federal poverty level.[1] Waiting lists are non-existent for most states as they have an exemption for pregnant women or newborns..[2]

[1]https://www.medicaid.gov/chip/eligibility-standards/index.ht... [2]https://www.medicaid.gov/chip/eligibility-standards/waiting-...

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Lol try having kids and see for yourself how "generous" it is. We've been "fully-covered" for pregnancy and delivery for both kids and still had to go on payment plans to cover the costs.

Are you on Medicaid or CHIP? Because that's what I was referring to.

Very generous compared to what? Don’t most other wealthy nations also offer this kind of care, along with continued free at point of service care for life?

In the US there's a patchwork of programs that vary according to the state and even the city you live in. The tragedy of the situation is that prenatal care is literally a case of spending pennies and recouping many, many dollars down the line in health costs for both the mother and the child. When you ponder the situation, it's truly a WTF moment.

Generous compared to what the author is suggesting - pregnant women being left out in the cold.

Infant mortality in the USA is high relative to other developed countries:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_...

At around 6 per 1000, compared to 4.3 for the UK (or 2.7 for Japan) for example.

I would imagine, infant mortality isn’t just about a function of healthcare available during pregnancy, but also for the parent before pregnancy. There could of course be multiple other confounding factors (such as life style issues)...

How countries count infant mortality is not the same. So it's very hard to compare numbers.

Would life style issues be a major difference between here and the UK or Japan?

Does chip and Medicaid cover absolutely everyone who might need it? Are there people who, despite the coverage, are still left with outstanding costs they can't meet?

My understanding is that in Cuba, there is no applying to services like Chip, or Medicaid. Theres no chance you won't get coverage, as everyone, by default, gets the care they need. Wait times are non existent for the pregnant or disabled across the country, not just in certain regions.

It doesn't seem totally unlikely that the people that """"fall through the cracks"""" in the American systems are enough to swing infant mortality rates.

>The US actually has very generous social services when it comes to medical care for pregnant women and their babies.

Only if you're white:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/11/magazine/black-mothers-ba...

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