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From: patth@ccnysci.UUCP (Patt Haring)
Newsgroups: misc.kids,comp.edu,sci.edu,sci.med,misc.headlines
Subject: U.S. Far Behind In Health Care, Education : Panel Finds
Message-ID: <1843@ccnysci.UUCP>
Date: 2 May 89 22:36:50 GMT
Reply-To: patth@ccnysci.UUCP (Patt Haring)
Organization: City College Of New York
Lines: 53


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*U.S. FAR BEHIND IN HEALTH CARE AND EDUCATION, PANEL FINDS 

Although Americans spend 50% more on health care, as a percentage of their
economy, than any of the 22 principal industrialized countries, the United
States ranks 20th in infant mortality and in the bottom third with respect to 
life expectancy at birth. This was one of the disturbing conclusions of a 
bipartisan report by the Joint Economic Committee of Congress, the first in 
nine years to be approved by all committee members. But the committee singled 
out education as ``perhaps the most prominent area where our nation's 
shortcomings threaten to impose enormous long-term costs,'' noting that 
``approximately 13% of 17-year-old Americans cannot read, write, or count'' 
and that many are members of a ``widening underclass'' of the homeless and the
very poor who live outside of the mainstream. ``The United States spends more 
per student than other industrialized nations,'' according to the report, 
``but it is still falling behind. . . in promoting literacy, job skills, and
educational achievement. . . ,'' with a dropout rate for blacks of 40% and
more than 55% for Hispanic students. The decline in college enrollment, 
especially among minorities, was described as another cause for concern. A
contributing factor, the committee indicated, may be the finding that while 
family income rose 6.4% in the 1980s, the cost of public colleges rose 32% and
of private institutions, 51%, at the same time that government grants to
students declined. The result was a 17% increase in student loans since the 
1970s. ``Increased public outlays for education should be viewed as a 
necessary and vital investment,'' the report said. Finally, in describing a 
sharp increase in poverty, especially among the young, in the past decade, the
committee said that ``the puzzle is that poverty is still so much higher than 
in the l970s even though unemployment is significantly lower.'' ``A most
urgent concern,'' the committee concluded, ``is the insulation of the current 
generation of underclass children from the dispiriting effects of their 
environment.''  THE NEW YORK TIMES April 19, 1989 p.A16.
(Compiled from Newspapers and Medical Journals for IMTS's Healthweek In 
Review.)

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Patt Haring 
rutgers!cmcl2!ccnysci!patth  
patth@ccnysci.BITNET