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[Nik Naym:] No, you end up dead because you had to wait too long for that needed life-saving medical procedure that has been rationed.

This is the old Hush Bimbo spiel. Look at the REAL outcome - the life expectancy ranking:

6 Japan 81.15
7 Sweden 80.40
12 Canada 80.10
16 France 79.60
21 Israel 79.32
25 Greece 79.09
43 Jordan 78.24
48 United States 77.71
54 Albania 77.24

And guess who spends the most money?

Those life expectancy figures are nothing more than idiotic statistics that are trotted out every time someone wants to make the case that the U.S. health care system is somehow dysfunctional and needs to be made into a socialist system like those in other industrialized nations.

Among industrialized nations, variations in health care systems have very little influence on overall life expectancy statistics. The U.S. ranks so low on this list for two reasons, neither of which has anything to do with the type of health care system we have. For one thing, the U.S. has more people living in remote, sparsely-populated areas than countries in Europe and advanced industrialized countries in Asia. This means Americans are more susceptible to death due to a lack of immediate emergency medical care in cases of motor vehicle accidents, medical emergencies, etc.

The second -- and more important -- factor is our culture of individual freedom combined with our diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds. Most of the countries that rank high for life expectancy are very homogenized populations living in regimented cultures. The U.S. has a higher incidence of almost any social pathology (drug abuse, alcoholism, violent crime, etc.) than most countries, which goes a long way toward explaining why our life expectancy is lower than most other modern, industrial countries. In fact, I believe terms like "crack baby" can't even be translated into Japanese.

One last thing to consider is that a country's average life expectancy could be influenced by health care factors that are misleading indicators of the nation's health care system. Jordan, for example, has an average life expectancy that is slightly higher than that of the U.S. And yet I would venture to guess that 99% of the people who have the option of getting medical treatment in either country would -- and do -- select the U.S. Jordan's average life expectancy is influenced by people like the late King Hussein, who traveled to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota on numerous occasions for his medical treatment. For life expectancy statistics to have any meaning in the context of a country's medical care, people like this should be counted in the country where they get their medical treatment (particularly for serious illness or injury), not where they live.

the list you present is misleading for a variety of reasons.

First the population sample of most of the countries at the top of the list is rather small compared to that of the United States. Secondly, with the exception of Canada most have homogenous populations with a common diet and limited gene pool which may account for some of the factors of longevity. For example, if Sardinia was detached from Italy it would rank among the highest on the list.

The United States does not have a homogenous population, nor a common diet etc. plus the agregate average does not take regional differences into account nor class and ethnic differences.

In short the statistics are totally meaningless when it comes to healthecare. A truer gauge of the effectiveness of health care would be the life expectancy of those receiving US helthcare as opposed to those receiving none, or comparatively comparing our healthcare statistics to those of other countries.

WRT 127, are you implying that we, the people of the Free Republic of the United States, require more socialism and socialist programs to keep pace with the rest of the world?

Or, as I suspect, are you are offering some statistics without a clue as to what they mean (that is, you haven't any understanding of the nuances of the facts) or the implications thereof?