Recent data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention shows that infant deaths declined with 2% in the U.S in 2006, but the country is still ranking low among the top industrialized countries with low infant mortality rates. More precisely, the U.S occupies the 29^th place today, while in 1960 it ranked 12^th lowest in the world. The problem is that Americans give the most attention and pay more money than any other country for health care and despite this fact, the mortality rate of infants doesn’t drop and remains constant. In the year 2006, Americans paid $6, 714 per capital on health, which is almost double than what other developed countries spend on their health system.

Among the things some people blame for the situation are obesity, drug abuse and even a general failure of the health care system. Because of the fact that infant mortality has long been considered a powerful indicator a of a nation’s health and quality of its health system, this issue is considered of maximum importance. Yearly in the U.S more than 28, 000 infants die before reaching the age of 1. In 2006, the mortality rate for infants was 6.71 infant deaths for every 1,000 live births, while other developed countries managed to rate just under 5.0 infant deaths per 1,000 live births.

Whether this can be blamed on the decentralized health care system, drugs, preterm births or on other factors doesn’t really matter. The bottom line is that it is unacceptable for a country that pays so much for health care to have such an alarming infant mortality rate.