"Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs..."

[P4man]

I challenge you to remove every medical advancement that your own nation pays for, but that was created by a for-profit corporation in the United States, and then try to judge how high the quality of your care is then.  You are more dependent upon the US than you care to acknowledge.

Thats a nonsensical argument. You seem to imply that by overpaying for a completely unnecessary cleptocracy of for profit health insurance, you are somehow advancing medical science; I can only laugh at that. Insurance companies arent the ones driving medical innovation, they just pocket the money, essentially leaching on the system and making killer profits at the expense of people's health.

Pharmaceutical companies do innovate, but having a national health insurance changes nothing about that. We buy the same drugs you know, the same scanners and medical equipment, those companies still have the same incentive to develop new equipments,  drugs and treatments. Our hospitals are no different than yours, they have to control their costs while striving to provide the best healthcare they can, we do have competition between hospitals. All we do is essentially cut out a middle man who's business incentive is selling insurance to healthy people that are less likely to need it and not paying to people who actually do need it;  spending gazillion on advertisements, legal costs and lobbying benefiting no one but their shareholders and politicians.

Anyway, Im going to have to agree with rainingbitcoins, clearly you dont want to face the facts about your broken healthcare system because you think it clashes with your ideology.  The reality is that when it comes to health insurance a free market ideology clashes with morality, as there is no economic incentive to insure (or even treat) people with poor health, particularly if they are unproductive people. Trying to fix that basic contradiction with complex rules simply doesnt work. Accepting health is not a tradable economic asset and access to affordable healthcare a human right, works better. As it turns out, its cheaper too.

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[JA37]

I'm happy for your anecdotal evidence and I too have similar stories.

You seem to take things a little more defensively than I intended. I'm not calling your system bad. Indeed, I don't even know what system you use. I'm saying the US system doesn't operate as it is perceived to operate from afar.

However, no matter what system you use, no one should ever *be required* to give up the right to decide exactly what level of care they want to receive. Sometimes, it really matters. Sometimes those decisions are life and death.

Some countries with universal health care do require people to relinquish these rights. Canada prefers one tier for everyone. The UK is reputed to make it difficult to switch counties for care. (I am not an expert on foreign care) Most countries, however, do not require one size fits all healthcare. Most countries allow people to buy "supplemental" insurance or to pay for extra services beyond those automatically afforded to others. However, being responsible for your own additional medical services doesn't make you evil.

The US fits into this second category. We call this optional supplemental insurance, "medical insurance" because the initial tier requires no insurance at all. Indeed the US does have a level of care afforded to everyone without cost. We don't call it "insurance" though. It is called mandatory care. Many people want the bar for mandatory care to be set higher but indeed there is a bar.

Outside of emergencies, often times to receive this free level of care, you are required to stand in lines with people you wouldn't normally associate with. People often find this demeaning. They argue the bar should be set higher so they don't have to associate themselves with such people. To avoid having to be associated with mandatory care, or to avoid having to pay for their own care or to avoid purchasing insurance, many people choose to go to regular for-profit medical providers then just don't pay their bills. This drives for-profit cost up for those that do want to pay.

That's an interesting perspective that I haven't heard before. So there is free care available to every American, if they want it? Even proactive care?  
I've talked to a lot of people, co workers, friends, relatives, all in the US and never heard this before. What I've been told is that you can't be denied emergency care, so you would have to wait until your condition is severe and then go to the ER. Proactive care is something you'd have to pay for yourself. Have I've been lied to?
I would understand that waiting for a disease to become severe before treating it would drive up costs.

I've never been in a hospital in the UK, but German and French care is great in my (granted, very limited) experience.

And I don't mean to be defensive. It's just that anecdotes doesn't really say much. There are great examples and poor examples in every system. I can give you some real horror stories from our system too. Both the public and the private side.

[rainingbitcoins]

That's an interesting perspective that I haven't heard before. So there is free care available to every American, if they want it? Even proactive care?  
I've talked to a lot of people, co workers, friends, relatives, all in the US and never heard this before. What I've been told is that you can't be denied emergency care, so you would have to wait until your condition is severe and then go to the ER. Proactive care is something you'd have to pay for yourself. Have I've been lied to?

Yes. By MoonShadow. Repeatedly.

He also said that illegal immigrants can't get emergency care, which, of course, is not true:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Medical_Treatment_and_Active_Labor_Act

All patients have EMTALA rights equally, regardless of age, race, religion, nationality, ethnicity, residence, citizenship, or legal status. If patient's status is found to be illegal, hospitals may not discharge a patient prior to completion of care, though law enforcement and hospital security may take necessary action to prevent a patient from escaping or harming others. Treatment may only be delayed as needed to prevent patients from harming themselves or others.

I wouldn't listen to a word of his bullshit. He's clearly not interested in an honest argument, and the facts are whatever he wants them to be. You'd have better luck convincing your cat.

[MoonShadow]

I'm happy for your anecdotal evidence and I too have similar stories.

You seem to take things a little more defensively than I intended. I'm not calling your system bad. Indeed, I don't even know what system you use. I'm saying the US system doesn't operate as it is perceived to operate from afar.

However, no matter what system you use, no one should ever *be required* to give up the right to decide exactly what level of care they want to receive. Sometimes, it really matters. Sometimes those decisions are life and death.

Some countries with universal health care do require people to relinquish these rights. Canada prefers one tier for everyone. The UK is reputed to make it difficult to switch counties for care. (I am not an expert on foreign care) Most countries, however, do not require one size fits all healthcare. Most countries allow people to buy "supplemental" insurance or to pay for extra services beyond those automatically afforded to others. However, being responsible for your own additional medical services doesn't make you evil.

The US fits into this second category. We call this optional supplemental insurance, "medical insurance" because the initial tier requires no insurance at all. Indeed the US does have a level of care afforded to everyone without cost. We don't call it "insurance" though. It is called mandatory care. Many people want the bar for mandatory care to be set higher but indeed there is a bar.

Outside of emergencies, often times to receive this free level of care, you are required to stand in lines with people you wouldn't normally associate with. People often find this demeaning. They argue the bar should be set higher so they don't have to associate themselves with such people. To avoid having to be associated with mandatory care, or to avoid having to pay for their own care or to avoid purchasing insurance, many people choose to go to regular for-profit medical providers then just don't pay their bills. This drives for-profit cost up for those that do want to pay.

That's an interesting perspective that I haven't heard before. So there is free care available to every American, if they want it? Even proactive care?  
I've talked to a lot of people, co workers, friends, relatives, all in the US and never heard this before. What I've been told is that you can't be denied emergency care, so you would have to wait until your condition is severe and then go to the ER. Proactive care is something you'd have to pay for yourself. Have I've been lied to?

No, not really.  'Proactive' care, which I assume means preventative care, isn't easy to come by for free if you are an adult under normal circumstances.  Every major city that I've ever lived in has some kind of public clinic system that one can go to to get such care for free, but it's usually funded (primarily) by a charity organization and tends to be continuously overworked.  However, if you have some kind of established condition that the state considers a disability, such as visual impairment, you can generally get get preventative care coverage via the state's Medicaid block grant programs, but those vary by state.  The statement that only 'emergency care' can't be denied is mostly true, but loses details.  The laws that govern this vary by state, but basicly result in the same end.  Every hospital, in order to be considered a 'public' hospital and receive the many legal and tax benefits of being a public hospital (as opposed to a private corporation, such as the Mayo Clinic) must have and maintain an "emergency room" with a minimum set of equipment, medical staff and 24/7 operations.  These emergency rooms cannot deny service to those who enter the emergency room based upon ability to pay nor, for the most part, the nature of the medical condition.  The only thing that can to discourage the use of the emergency room is to triage the low priority cases, but if you can wait long enough, you will be seen even for simple things that aren't remotely life threatening.  These emergency rooms are a significant operating cost for the hospitals, but less than the legal benefits that they usually receive.  So, as a means of controlling costs, the hospitals will often band together to sponsor the free clinics (in order to offload much of the demand) in major urban areas while encouraging the inclined employees to volunteer some of their time there; while also charging insurance companies enormous markups for emergency room visits, thus resulting in insurance companies sponsoring 'urgent care' clinics with late hours and engaging in publicity campaigns among their covered clients to encourage them to choose the urgent care clinics for "less than emergency" immediate care needs.  The point I making is that, even though care is often not funded by government structures, access to care exists even for the poorest Americans.  It just comes in  variety of forms which are often not widely known.  Another such example are religious aid networks such as Medi-Share (www.medi-share.org) which is a mutual aid/cost sharing network that most people wouldn't consider to be insurance, even though that would be it's net effect.  My mother-in-law is blind, and thus receives coverage under medicaid rules, but those rules don't cover heart surgery.  Yet she received a triple bypass two years ago for next to nothing, because her surgeon was in a charity based cost sharing network.  She knew nothing about such a network, and as such couldn't have applied for the aid unless her doctor had told her about it.  Americans, as a rule, really do tend to care about one another; it's just that Americans, as a rule, don't consider such care a right.  We consider it charity.

[MoonShadow]

That's an interesting perspective that I haven't heard before. So there is free care available to every American, if they want it? Even proactive care?  
I've talked to a lot of people, co workers, friends, relatives, all in the US and never heard this before. What I've been told is that you can't be denied emergency care, so you would have to wait until your condition is severe and then go to the ER. Proactive care is something you'd have to pay for yourself. Have I've been lied to?

Yes. By MoonShadow. Repeatedly.

He also said that illegal immigrants can't get emergency care, which, of course, is not true:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Medical_Treatment_and_Active_Labor_Act

All patients have EMTALA rights equally, regardless of age, race, religion, nationality, ethnicity, residence, citizenship, or legal status. If patient's status is found to be illegal, hospitals may not discharge a patient prior to completion of care, though law enforcement and hospital security may take necessary action to prevent a patient from escaping or harming others. Treatment may only be delayed as needed to prevent patients from harming themselves or others.

I wouldn't listen to a word of his bullshit. He's clearly not interested in an honest argument, and the facts are whatever he wants them to be. You'd have better luck convincing your cat.

I didn't say that they never had such support, but they aren't generally aware of it.  So a phone poll asking if you have insurance coverage isn't going to get a yes out of such people.  I don't know anyone who considers patients rights to be insurance coverage anyway.  You are talking about different things.

[FredericBastiat]

Why don't we all be honest about it? Why should any industry be forced to assist another person if they aren't under any contractual obligation (uncoerced consent) to do so? Why should doctors be forced to admit or assist any patient if they don't want to? Why should their salaries be regulated? Why should any "public" universities or colleges limit graduates in the medical industry? Why should the industry control the number of doctors at all? Why should government regulate pharmaceutical costs? Why should government be involved in the medical industry, including education in the first place, except beyond provable physical injury?

Additionally, if you don't like your insurance carrier (any kind mind you), get another one, or go without. If you don't like it, compete or get out of the way. If there was a cure for every ailment, including death and pain, and I was the only person in the world who had it, and I charged a billion currency units, tough nuggies. You can't force me to give it to you. That would be theft and a violation of my personal liberties (aka slavery).

I won't label the above socialist as that word has been bastardized one to many times, but it comes awful close. Nevertheless I'll refrain. Suffice it to say, I will call it a form of slavery.

Life was never fair, and never will be. Trying to force it to be fair is far worse. Get over yourself. Cry me a river.

[rainingbitcoins]

I didn't say that they never had such support, but they aren't generally aware of it.  So a phone poll asking if you have insurance coverage isn't going to get a yes out of such people.  I don't know anyone who considers patients rights to be insurance coverage anyway.  You are talking about different things.

Honestly, it was a little hard to parse your post. That act deals with the right to not be refused emergency medical coverage and I thought that's what your post referred to. Based on your follow-up post, it looks like I made an incorrect assumption. But you do vastly overstate the availability of aid programs, and the simple fact is that if everyone did know about them, the programs would go broke in 10 minutes. 45k people a year aren't dying because they simply didn't know where to look, and state medical assistance is often difficult to qualify for. There are a shitload of people in my situation - they make too much to get any kind of assistance, but aren't offered insurance through their employer, and couldn't begin to afford non-employer-subsidized insurance without forgoing food or housing.

Why don't we all be honest about it? Why should any industry be forced to assist another person if they aren't under any contractual obligation (uncoerced consent) to do so? Why should doctors be forced to admit or assist any patient if they don't want to? Why should their salaries be regulated? Why should any "public" universities or colleges limit graduates in the medical industry? Why should the industry control the number of doctors at all? Why should government regulate pharmaceutical costs? Why should government be involved in the medical industry, including education in the first place, except beyond provable physical injury?

I don't know. Perhaps because letting the decision of whether someone lives or dies to a cutthroat businessman who profits more if you die is the most dumbass idea I've ever heard.

And of course this coercion you all talk about never seems to apply to regular people coerced by big business. I've actually noticed that a lot of you seem to have weird ideas about what that word even means. A couple months ago, I had to quote the damn dictionary at Atlas because he couldn't understand that you can coerce someone without literally threatening to kill them.

If there was a cure for every ailment, including death and pain, and I was the only person in the world who had it, and I charged a billion currency units, tough nuggies.
---
Life was never fair, and never will be. Trying to force it to be fair is far worse. Get over yourself. Cry me a river.

You have all of the compassion and human emotion of a serial killer, and the value system of a 4th grade bully. Also, you belong to an organization that made Joe McCarthy look sane and moderate by comparison.

[MoonShadow]

I didn't say that they never had such support, but they aren't generally aware of it.  So a phone poll asking if you have insurance coverage isn't going to get a yes out of such people.  I don't know anyone who considers patients rights to be insurance coverage anyway.  You are talking about different things.

Honestly, it was a little hard to parse your post. That act deals with the right to not be refused emergency medical coverage and I thought that's what your post referred to. Based on your follow-up post, it looks like I made an incorrect assumption. But you do vastly overstate the availability of aid programs, and the simple fact is that if everyone did know about them, the programs would go broke in 10 minutes.

Maybe, maybe not.  Neither of us could ever know until it's tried.

45k people a year aren't dying because they simply didn't know where to look, and state medical assistance is often difficult to qualify for.

You keep mentioning the 45K people per year thing.  Where do you come up with that number?  You keep calling me a liar, even when I present support for the position, but you just leave that number hanging out there like it's an accepted fact.  I don't even know where it comes from.

 There are a shitload of people in my situation - they make too much to get any kind of assistance, but aren't offered insurance through their employer, and couldn't begin to afford non-employer-subsidized insurance without forgoing food or housing.

I doubt it.  What state do you live in, how much do you make, and who is your employer?  My wife worked for Wal-Mart for years, after quitting Proctor & Gamble.  She loved the job.  The pay sucked, but strangely enough P&G's pay scale wasn't exactly stellar, even though she had a BS in Biology and worked in her field as a microbiology lab tech.  The health care offered wasn't exactly great either, but their legal aid support (something that I've yet to see from any employer I've ever had since the USMC) was outstanding.  The primary reason that Wal-Mart employees are twice as likely to get public assistance (over competitors such as Target), is because Wal-Mart's associate legal aid will help them get it.

Give me some details, and I will show you that you are wrong.

[Red]

That's an interesting perspective that I haven't heard before. So there is free care available to every American, if they want it? Even proactive care? 

Yes, there is free care available to every American. However, not in an analogous way to how Europeans use that term. In the US this level of care was created as a safety net for "the poor". However, without attempting to sound too sarcastic, the group called "the poor" has a very low barrier to entry.

I know plenty of folks from upper-middle class families who decided to rebel or otherwise become dysfunctional. They simply go down to the county agencies and declared themselves "in need" of assistance. There is no judgment rendered about why your "wealthy" family would choose not to help you. Nor is there judgement about why they might choose to become dysfunctional. The British have a term called "going on the dole" which carries similar connotations to what I describe above.

So these programs are not entirely free in the European sense. It requires you to declare yourself as being "in need". Some would say whose in these programs are required to pay with their dignity. Rather than strict regulation, a dignity barrier keeps these programs from growing exponentially. Interestingly, many states have extensive advertising and out-reach programs to try and convince "needy" people to sign up for these programs.

As for the programs themselves, Medicaid is the most commonly known outside of the US. However there are a multitude of state and locally managed programs in every jurisdiction. Originally these started with "county hospitals" and emergency rooms like you mentioned. However, that mechanism of service is needlessly costly and generally silly. As such the programs expanded away from the hospitals to county and community "clinics" that serve the same need. Keep in mind that these programs only start the process, they also arrange many medical procedures outside of their programs. These extended procedures are often provided pro-bono by private doctors and for-profit hospitals. (Or maybe for tax write offs. I don't judge motivations. I just watch care happening.)

As others have already pointed out, every child qualifies automatically. Mothers qualify automatically as well. This does provide preventative care, vaccinations, checkups, and especially pre-natal care. Even illegal aliens qualify. Where I live county clinics make every announcement in both English and Spanish. If you sat in the clinic you would be proud of how "progressive" this all seems. The biggest obvious "gap" though is in automatic coverage of working age males, especially the white ones. These folks are expected to take care of themselves. If they can't they are expected to ask for help before receiving benefits. They can qualify of course, however, society tends to charge them a lot in dignity for doing so.

---

The other tiers of health care are "Medicare Insurance", "Private Medical Insurance", and "Self Pay".

Curiously, those who demand the absolute best care aspire to pay for it themselves. *The Rich* never ask, "what is the best insurance?" That question seems entirely silly to them. Obviously, the best care is what they need (or demand) at that moment. Optimal care means, care unconstrained by others who would have them receive less.

---

NOTE: In no way am I declaring our current system as optimal. I'm not even declaring it better than anyone else's system. But before we can improve it, we must understand what it currently is and how it got to be that way. That helps us see what could make it better, and what has already made it worse.

[rainingbitcoins]

You keep mentioning the 45K people per year thing.  Where do you come up with that number?  You keep calling me a liar, even when I present support for the position, but you just leave that number hanging out there like it's an accepted fact.  I don't even know where it comes from.

I thought I'd linked that one in this thread, but I must have been thinking of a different one. Here you go: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2009/09/new-study-finds-45000-deaths-annually-linked-to-lack-of-health-coverage/

I doubt it.  What state do you live in, how much do you make, and who is your employer?  My wife worked for Wal-Mart for years, after quitting Proctor & Gamble.  She loved the job.  The pay sucked, but strangely enough P&G's pay scale wasn't exactly stellar, even though she had a BS in Biology and worked in her field as a microbiology lab tech.  The health care offered wasn't exactly great either, but their legal aid support (something that I've yet to see from any employer I've ever had since the USMC) was outstanding.  The primary reason that Wal-Mart employees are twice as likely to get public assistance (over competitors such as Target), is because Wal-Mart's associate legal aid will help them get it.

Give me some details, and I will show you that you are wrong.

That's a little too much info to share on a public forum, but I will say that I work for a small business subcontracting to a larger one in the IT sector and make about $25k/year. A few years back when I was closer to $20k, I was in financial trouble with medical bills and car trouble, and I wanted to see if I qualified for anything, so I headed down to the DPW office. When I told the woman who interviewed me that I made that much and was a single person without kids, she looked like she was trying to choke back a laugh. She told me that I was welcome to go ahead and apply, but that I realistically didn't have a chance.

[MoonShadow]

You keep mentioning the 45K people per year thing.  Where do you come up with that number?  You keep calling me a liar, even when I present support for the position, but you just leave that number hanging out there like it's an accepted fact.  I don't even know where it comes from.

I thought I'd linked that one in this thread, but I must have been thinking of a different one. Here you go: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2009/09/new-study-finds-45000-deaths-annually-linked-to-lack-of-health-coverage/

Hmm, not exactly an unbiased source, but certainly more trustworthy than taking Cuba's government statistics at face value.  I'll accept that number, but what would the number be otherwise?  The implication of the study is that those 45K people wouldn't have died otherwise, but realisticly speaking some percentage of them would have, if for no other reason than some percentage of people that are uninsured are in such a situtation because of their own life decisions, and thus some percentage of them aren't going to get the care that would have saved them even if it were free.  People still die unnecessarily in the best of European style health care systems, and not all because they are delayed or denied care.

I doubt it.  What state do you live in, how much do you make, and who is your employer?  My wife worked for Wal-Mart for years, after quitting Proctor & Gamble.  She loved the job.  The pay sucked, but strangely enough P&G's pay scale wasn't exactly stellar, even though she had a BS in Biology and worked in her field as a microbiology lab tech.  The health care offered wasn't exactly great either, but their legal aid support (something that I've yet to see from any employer I've ever had since the USMC) was outstanding.  The primary reason that Wal-Mart employees are twice as likely to get public assistance (over competitors such as Target), is because Wal-Mart's associate legal aid will help them get it.

Give me some details, and I will show you that you are wrong.

That's a little too much info to share on a public forum, but I will say that I work for a small business subcontracting to a larger one in the IT sector and make about $25k/year. A few years back when I was closer to $20k, I was in financial trouble with medical bills and car trouble, and I wanted to see if I qualified for anything, so I headed down to the DPW office. When I told the woman who interviewed me that I made that much and was a single person without kids, she looked like she was trying to choke back a laugh. She told me that I was welcome to go ahead and apply, but that I realistically didn't have a chance.

I will assume that you are a straight, white male then.  Nonsmoker?  Do you have a particular religion or political ideology (but I repeat myself) you are willing to share?  Where your parents married until you were 18?  Where did/do you attend college?  If you have never gone to college, what is the nearest public university and how old are you?  Would you be willing to consider signing up as a weekend military reservist or national guardsman; or have you ever been a military "brat"?  Or had a parent who was a member of the armed services, even before you were born?  Are any of your ancestors verfiablely of the American Indian tribes, as far back as your great-grandparents?  Did you grow up any urban districts that could have been "federal enterprise zones" (basicly poor enough to get federal funds for small businesses)?  Were either of your parents 'naturalized' citizens?  What state are we talking about?

I'm sure that isn't even an exaustive set of questions, for I'm sure that there are programs that I'm not aware of

[FredericBastiat]

I don't know. Perhaps because letting the decision of whether someone lives or dies to a cutthroat businessman who profits more if you die is the most dumbass idea I've ever heard.

Letting them die? Was I the one that caused their death? If someone dies in Timbuktu, and I had the cure, am I responsible for their death? Where are you going with this?

And of course this coercion you all talk about never seems to apply to regular people coerced by big business. I've actually noticed that a lot of you seem to have weird ideas about what that word even means. A couple months ago, I had to quote the damn dictionary at Atlas because he couldn't understand that you can coerce someone without literally threatening to kill them.

I'm only interested in the version of coercion which involves threats of injury. Me having more money, more insurance, more health care, more assets, more intelligence, more cures, and more things in general, does not equate to threat nor effectuate coercion.

You have all of the compassion and human emotion of a serial killer, and the value system of a 4th grade bully. Also, you belong to an organization that made Joe McCarthy look sane and moderate by comparison.

You don't get it do you?; and don't assume that you can equate my example to what I'd do in any particular situation. I do care. I would help. I do have values, morals, scruples, sympathy, empathy, compassion and charity regarding the plight of others.

However, I have zero tolerance for a government which tries to force the above. There is no such thing as forced compassion, forced empathy, or forced charity, to name a few. Forcing the aforementioned is the antithesis of the meaning of those concepts. Government forcing those sorts of things destroys the very nature and purpose of what it means to have those characteristics.

I was demonstrating that force of expropriation is not justified. Nothing more, nothing less. Get a clue.

[cruikshank]

So I have to support my claims while others do not?

Yes, they should back up their claims as well. But I also don't care about any of the other (yours or theirs) claims, I am interested in that one claim and that one claim only.

They have a higher life expectancy because they have a lower infant mortality rate.  They have a lower infant mortality rate because they record infant deaths differently.  In the US, if a fetus is delivered naturally, and was not known to already be dead before labor began, it's counted as an infant death instead of a late term miscarriage.  Thus skewing the life expectancy stats compared to nations that don't include infants that die during or shortly following birth. I'm not sure how Canada does it, but it's still apples to oranges.

So, again, how does Canada count its infant mortality different than the US? You yourself said you weren't sure how they did it, so how can it be apples and oranges when you don't know there are even oranges involved?

[MoonShadow]

So I have to support my claims while others do not?

Yes, they should back up their claims as well. But I also don't care about any of the other (yours or theirs) claims, I am interested in that one claim and that one claim only.
So, again, how does Canada count its infant mortality different than the US? You yourself said you weren't sure how they did it, so how can it be apples and oranges when you don't know there are even oranges involved?

Fair enough.

My google-fu could not produce anything official from the Canadian government, but according to this article (http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/08/infant_mortality_figures_for_us_are_misleading.html) Canadian stats, as well as some European stats, don't consider a baby born with a birthweight of less than 500 grams as ever have been alive, whereas I have already mentioned, US stats would have if there were no direct evidence that that same fetus was already dead before labor began.

"
Low birth weight infants are not counted against the "live birth" statistics for many countries reporting low infant mortality rates.

According to the way statistics are calculated in Canada, Germany, and Austria, a premature baby weighing <500g is not considered a living child.

But in the U.S., such very low birth weight babies are considered live births. The mortality rate of such babies - considered "unsalvageable" outside of the U.S. and therefore never alive - is extraordinarily high; up to 869 per 1,000 in the first month of life alone. This skews U.S. infant mortality statistics.

[...]

Some of the countries reporting infant mortality rates lower than the U.S. classify babies as "stillborn" if they survive less than 24 hours whether or not such babies breathe, move, or have a beating heart at birth.

Forty percent of all infant deaths occur in the first 24 hours of life.

In the United States, all infants who show signs of life at birth (take a breath, move voluntarily, have a heartbeat) are considered alive.

If a child in Hong Kong or Japan is born alive but dies within the first 24 hours of birth, he or she is reported as a "miscarriage" and does not affect the country's reported infant mortality rates.

[...]

Too short to count?

In Switzerland and other parts of Europe, a baby born who is less than 30 centimeters long is not counted as a live birth. Therefore, unlike in the U.S., such high-risk infants cannot affect Swiss infant mortality rates.

Efforts to salvage these tiny babies reflect this classification. Since 2000, 42 of the world's 52 surviving babies weighing less than 400g (0.9 lbs.) were born in the United States."

That is a quote from another article (http://pjmedia.com/blog/the-doctor-is-in-infant-mortality-comparisons-a-statistical-miscarriage/?singlepage=true) which also contains these two gems...

"Norway boasts one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world. But when the main determinant of mortality — weight at birth — is factored in, Norway has no better survival rates than the United States.

Pregnancies in very young first-time mothers carry a high risk of delivering low birth weight infants. In 2002, the average age of first-time mothers in Canada was 27.7 years. During the same year, the same statistic for U.S. mothers was 25.1 — an all-time high."

Unfortunately the author of the second article doesn't provide references that I can find, so I can't follow her any farther down the rabbit hole.  She also happens to be this woman (http://www.lindahalderman.com/) so you can discount her opinon on the matter considering she is one of those evil conservative doctors who hate life and thus are drawn to public service instead.

Does this adaquately asnwer your question?

EDIT: And there is also this comment from another doctor on the first article...

"As a physician it is common knowledge that the U.S. healthcare system is unrivaled in the care delivered to high risk pregnancies. This country also has (by far) the most advanced neonatal ICU's in the world as well as the best neonatologists. It is annoying to read WHO (World Health Organization) statistics which continue to suggest realtively high infant mortality rates in the US, when it is just the opposite."

[MoonShadow]

Oh, and good job ignoring the link that cites very similar numbers from the Census Bureau.

I can't believe I overlooked this gem.

The Census Bureau gets it's data from polling US households.  Randomly on a yearly basis, and all that they can every 10 years.  It's often a paper poll, as opposed to a phone poll, but that also introduces self-selection bias because Americans don't have to respond to the random annual poll at all and can simply return the decadal poll with their name and number of household members while leaving the rest blank, and many do out of principle.  I have every time I have received the poll.  Make all the assumption you want about the demographics of those who refuse to reply, but no matter how you spin it, it's still just another poll.