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The COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the higher rate in 2020 and 2021:
An increasing number of U.S. women are dying during pregnancy or soon after giving birth, according to the latest data on the maternal mortality rate.
In 2021, there were 32.9 deaths per 100,000 live births, compared with 23.8 per 100,000 in 2020 and 20.1 in 2019, the National Center for Health Statistics reports March 16. The U.S. rate greatly exceeds those of other high-income countries. The total number of U.S. maternal deaths rose from 861 in 2020 to 1,205 in 2021.
There remains a wide disparity in the maternal mortality rate for Black women, at 69.9 deaths per 100,000 live births, compared with white women, at 26.6 per 100,000. Many social determinants of health underlie this gap, including differences in the quality of care that Black women receive before, during and after pregnancy.
The NCHS report doesn't discuss the reasons behind the increase for 2021. But COVID-19 contributed to a quarter of maternal deaths in 2020 and 2021, the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported in October. The pandemic also contributed to the mortality disparity between Black and white women, the GAO found, worsening existing structural inequities that lead to such issues as barriers to getting health care (SN: 4/10/20).
The U.S. maternal mortality rate has risen overall since 2018. The highest rate is among non-Hispanic Black women compared with Hispanic women and non-Hispanic white women.
The maternal deaths captured by the NCHS report are those that occur during pregnancy or within 42 days of the end of the pregnancy, "from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management." These causes include hemorrhaging, infections and high blood pressure disorders such as eclampsia.
The report excludes deaths after 42 days and up to the first year after birth. But 30 percent of pregnancy-related deaths occur during this period, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in September, from an analysis of the years 2017 to 2019.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday March 20 2023, @06:28PM (4 children)
All the Republicans I know personally want term limits for legislators. I say they all have term limits, if they do a lousy job they're out when their limited term is up, and can be re-elected if they do good work.
I want term limits for Supreme Court judges. Say, eight or ten years and out, like the democratically elected president.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 20 2023, @07:25PM (3 children)
The framers of the system specifically wanted long terms for Supreme Court Justices, but I don't think they envisioned the kind of lifespans we're experiencing today, nor the corrupting influences of all that time in the halls of power.
I'm in favor of both term limits, and age limits (sorry Bernie, the very old shouldn't be passing legislation that they'll never see the effects of), but I'd like to see them implemented as a kind of points system:
- Up to the current median life expectancy, elections are unaffected.
- If you are above the current median life expectancy, whatever your percentile rank is, say: older than 60% of living U.S. citizens expected age of death, use that to "trim" your election results. If you're the oldest person in the country, you'd need to win the election by a 75-25 or higher margin of the popular vote. If you're older than 75%, then you'd only need to win by 87.5-12.5.
This also should help keep the super-old out of office when life-extension gets more unevenly distributed than it already is.
Similar thing for term limits, two non-incumbents running against each other are unaffected. For each term served, an incumbent needs to win by additional margin.
https://old.reddit.com/r/DownWithIncumbency/ [reddit.com]
I think there's a quip attributed to Ben Franklin along the lines of: "House Guests and Fish have this in common: they both start to stink after three days." Similar applies to politicians, the longer they are in office, the less we should be trusting them to serve the interests of those who elected them.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Tuesday March 21 2023, @09:57AM
Politicians are a lot like diapers. Both tend to end up being full of shit and need to be replaced.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday March 24 2023, @02:05PM (1 child)
(sorry Bernie, the very old shouldn't be passing legislation that they'll never see the effects of)
He's eighty one. My Uncle Joe, Mom's brother, made it to 103. Mom made it to 92. If Bernie only lives as long as my mom, he has another decade of American law to live through. For Uncle Joe, twenty years. Lots of people don't even live for twenty years; teens die from suicide, gun shots, and car wrecks all the time.
How about John Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln? Lincoln was only 55, Kennedy was a kid, barely old enough to hold office. Neither one lived to see much of the legislation they signed into law's effects, and the kid almost destroyed civilization with the Bay of Pigs invasion. So I don't think you have a very powerful argument in favor of age limits.
I've heard some say there should be age limits for driving, but that's what the DMV is for, to test a person to see if they're capable of driving safely. Mom never had a ticket or a wreck in her life until she was 90 when someone on her bowling team backed into her. That was her only accident. She was the most careful and attentive driver I've ever ridden with. But some would have taken her license away two decades before she died, despite being a great, safe driver.
Each and every one of us has our own age limit. There is no universality to age of death, only its inevitability.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday March 24 2023, @03:15PM
>there should be age limits for driving, but that's what the DMV is for
So, yes, but that's a capability test, and any capability test for legislators would invariably be biased - like the poll tests of old.
And, while Bernie is 81, and may well live for 20 years more, will he really be experiencing the effects of his legislative decisions? Trump's deregulation of rail safety requirements came to roost fairly quickly, one White Noise [imdb.com] inspired toxic cloud after only 4-5 years. Many legislative decisions are a more slow shaping of society that takes decades to really have their effects, particularly those which allow industry to slowly accumulate toxins in the environment.
Also, Bernie wouldn't likely have a problem with his age, so much as his incumbency. Pre-pandemic, Bernie was 78 - exactly at median US life expectancy, so no penalty there. Now, life expectancy has dropped to 76 while he has aged 3 additional years, at his next re-election I would be asking his age bias to require him to win by a few points, instead of 50.001% he might need more like 52% of the popular vote (would need more data about the percentiles of life expectancy other than median...) Not much to ask of a candidate with so much political experience, that he convince the electorate just a bit more than a younger competitor, or that Bernie steps down and advises a younger candidate how to run for his voters.
Both the incumbency penalty and the age penalty are really more intended to get our elections off this 50.0000001% focus and encourage candidates to unify larger chunks of the population, put forth platforms that a large majority of voters will get behind, not just barely enough to win while spending their extra political capital in service of their lobbyist backers.
🌻🌻 [google.com]