In short, maternal mortality (women dying in childbirth) has been increasing in America for the past 10-15 years. But California has successfully reversed this trend, and has a maternal mortality rate of 1/3rd of the rest of the country (and 1/5th of Texas, which has the highest rate in the country). Maternal mortality rates in the US are significantly higher than the rest of the developed world.
I’m sure liberals agree with me that this is a good program that California has instituted, but what about conservative Dopers? If government could do this for the whole country, would it be worth the cost – or what cost would make it worth it? Are you troubled by the fact that Texas, and the country at large, have so much higher maternal mortality rates than other 1st world countries, and if so, why do you think this is?
That was a hugely biased article but I think it is great that universities and hospitals team up to improve patient outcomes. It is not clear from the article what government does or what expenses would be associated with it.
If I understand it correctly, the CMQCC (the organization responsible for the better care) is funded by the California Healthcare Foundation, California Department of Public Health, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. So some level of public funding.
What level of public funding would you be comfortable with to improve outcomes in this way?
The article you linked to talked about medical issues relating to maternal death. The article I linked to mentioned that deaths by violence were three times more common than medically related maternal deaths. Reducing violent crime doesn’t strike me as a medical issue - maybe we should spend the research money on building more prisons for those who kill their girlfriends.
Ironically, building more prisons is just a humanitarian gesture for prisoners who are confined in overcrowded, torturous conditions. We don’t do it because the same people who think more prisons lead to less crime also think terrible prison conditions lead to less crime, though both propositions have a big citation needed flag.
I’ll add that CA really did reduce the rate to a third – was that a fluke, or is there a chance that their efforts actually reduced medical related deaths?
We could spend it in a lot of ways. I have no idea of what percentage of the mothers who died by violence died from gunshot wounds vs. beatings vs. vehicular vs. anything else. One of the articles mentioned opioid poisoning - maybe that working on that would help.
Or maybe California had a bigger problem with retained placentae or too many C-sections than Texas does, and that’s why the research helped in CA. Or perhaps they have different demographics, or who knows what.
Supposedly California is bucking the trend. That’s great. Maybe whatever they are doing will work in Texas. It would be great if it did.
FTR I support motherhood. Also apple pie, and the American Way.
It’s hard to tell from the article the biggest drivers of the rate disparity. It seems like engaging in evidence based medical procedures and reducing unnecessary Cesarean procedures were the focus. Both of those sound good to me but I think the connection to specific actions like funding levels is nebulous.