Maureen Groppe, writing for Gannett News Service, has a nice run down of health care numbers for Indiana. This wasn’t directly mentioned in the article, but one thing that struck me was that Indiana’s infant mortality rate is apparently comparable to those of French Polynesia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates. (8.1 per 1,000; 8,100 per 100,000).
While it’s good to have the data, I would have liked to see more about how Indiana compared to the rest of the world as opposed to just the rest of the nation. “Average” for the country might not tell us much about our overall potential for improvement.
Another striking figure is that, between 2000 and 2007, family insurance premiums have increased about 83% from about $6,600 to $12,000. In the meantime, the median earnings of Indiana workers has increased from about $24,500 to $27,330. So, if I’m reading that right, it takes about 1/2 of one parent’s annual earnings to insure the family.
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