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Is Europe's Health Care Better?
Business Week June 13, 2007

http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/jun2007/gb20070613_921562.htm

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/051709dnbusfrance.40cc221.html

"The share of taxes in the French economy is more than 40 percent. In the United States, it's just over 25 percent. "

Canada provides universal (cheap) basic health care, but doesn't provide much (expensive) specialized care. Canadians have to go the U.S. for that.

Even the WHO, which rated U.S. health care below Cuba, admitted the U.S. is #1 in the world in both labor and capital (e.g. doctors, nurses, hospitals, equipment, etc.).

From article:

"I was once a believer in socialized medicine...my health-care prejudices crumbled. On a subzero Winnipeg morning in 1997, I cut across the hospital emergency room to shave a few minutes off my frigid commute. Swinging open the door, I stepped into a nightmare: the ER overflowed with elderly people on stretchers, waiting for admission. Some, it turned out, had waited five days. The air stank with sweat and urine. Right then, I began to reconsider everything that I thought I knew about Canadian health care. I soon discovered that the problems went well beyond overcrowded ERs. Patients had to wait for practically any diagnostic test or procedure, such as the man with persistent pain from a hernia operation whom we referred to a pain clinic—with a three-year wait list; or the woman needing a sleep study to diagnose what seemed like sleep apnea, who faced a two-year delay; or the woman with breast cancer who needed to wait four months for radiation therapy, when the standard of care was four weeks.

Also, I may add, a high infant mortality rate reduces life expectancy:

U.S. lagging behind many other nations on infant mortality rates by Kim Krisberg

"In 2005, 28,000 infants younger than age 1 died, out of more than 4.1 million births. Among those deaths were glaring disparities: The brief reported that the infant mortality rate was 13.68 deaths per 1,000 live births among blacks in 2005, 8.06 among American Indians and Alaska Natives, 8.3 among Puerto Ricans and 5.76 among whites. The lowest U.S. rate was among Cuban Americans, at 4.42."

However, there may be a negative correlation between fast food and life expectancy. Moreover, blacks have a lower life expectancy.

I know measurement standards between countries aren't universal. Anon's WSJ article supports my prior comments. Moreover, it should be noted, 60% of the WHO criteria is based on equality, not quality:

WSJ

"On measures such as child mortality and life expectancy, the U.S. has slipped since the 2000 rankings. But some researchers say that factors beyond the control of the health-care system are to blame, such as dietary habits."

Another article:

"In The Business of Health, Robert Ohsfeldt and John Schneider factor out intentional and unintentional injuries from life-expectancy statistics and find that Americans who don’t die in car crashes or homicides outlive people in any other Western country."

Fast food-junk food-processed food doesn't seem to be a positive factor on health outcomes. Also, the U.S., as a society, favors driving autos over exercising through walking and biking.