Based on the graph linked, almost everyone (the US probably beats Malawi though), in terms of life expectancy relative to healthcare spending.

What, you don't think any of those other countries had entitlement+bailout programs of their own?

Which is part of what is making them go bankrupt... Are those countries shining beacons of what is right and how things are to be done, or are the also in dire straits? you can't have it both ways aeortar.

1. I don't trust this source

2. You can make a graph show whatever you want.

3. Expectancy / spending is a bad metric, because of diminishing returns... the going from 0 to 100$ in medical spending gives a lot more than going from 1000 to 1100$. And a person who spends 0$ on healthcare and lives 30 years has a 30 / 0$ = infinity expectancy over spending value.

Lets do a quick calculation though...

Country A: 70 years expectancy, 10,000$ per year spent on healthcare. 0.007 life expectancy per $ spent.

Country B: 30 years expectancy, 100$ per year spent on healthcare. 0.3 life expectancy per $ spent...

By your argument this means country B has a better health system, because you get more life expectancy out of dollar spent.

Don't forget also that the #1 cause of death in the USA is self inflicted heart disease caused primarily by over comsumption of junk food. Culturally, americans view salads as "rabbit food"... actually in american dictionaries a salad is: "a base vegatable, such as lettece, with dressing sauce, such as honey mustered, ofter contains garnishes such as croutons, bacon, cheeses, and eggs"

I know because I looked it up and lost a bet on it, I argued that a salad is "mixed chopped vegetables", because that is what salad means in most other countries. (we actually use the world "salad" in hebrew for example).

Taltamir: The graph gets its data from the CIA world factbook. It's a comparison of life expectancy relative to % of GDP spent on health care.

It's also worth mentioning that Canada has its own bailout plan, and we have universal health care, and we're not doing too badly. We have a debt, yeah, but it's not too shabby. In addition, $7+ trillion of your debt has no relation to the bailout and is mainly really crappy spending.

1. i said it doesn't load, so as far as i knew it was just http://graphs.gapminder.org/

If it is really all CIA world factbook info then its worthwhile info.

2. You manage to skirt all my important points, do you have no proper response to any of my arguments?

I am torn between using "if everyone jumped off of a bridge would you" and "two wrongs don't make a right" as my response to that

Ah, the numbers games played, as with life expectancy per capita GDP, the implication being that the 'healthcare system' is the sole determinant of life expectancy.  I reject the premise as idiotic.

For those interested, here's a good read on why (not an all-encompassing why, mind you, but a good example).

Taltamir: I skirted the other points because they ranged from pointless ('I argued that a salad is "mixed chopped vegetables"'), to covered by either a later post or a previous one.

Look, if the system in every other first world nation is considered socialist and you'd rather not adopt it, that's fine by me. I just resent paying for people from the US coming over to take advantage of it. Which they do.

Do they come to 'take advantage' of the government system or the private, cash-paying part of the system?  There are certainly places offering big discounts for certain surgeries to cash customers, but that's not exactly the same thing, and there are many reasons why lower fees can be offered.

Daiwa: They are coming for both. They're coming for cheaper drugs, they're coming for the subsidized health care. Apparently, some Canadians go south for their health care. Maybe we should do a trade?

How is it they get 'subsidized healthcare' if they're not citizens?

I personally know an American that married a Canadian for the health care.

Exactly, and you seem to want it both ways - 'these countries are bankrupt because of healthcare, but the US isn't, it's only bankrupt because of bailouts' - even though those other countries also had bail-outs.

Anyway if you want to argue that it's the healthcare that's bankrupting those countries, here's two initial things you should be doing. Firstly, show me what their debt is (as a % of GDP) compared to the US, and show it's higher (unless you're arguing they spent far less on bail outs/entitlements, in which case you'll need figures to back up that assertion). Secondly, compare their healthcare costs to that of the US. Good luck with either of those!

Why don't you trust them - What is the issue you have with the data they're using? How are they incorrectly displaying this data? (since you can only make a graph show what you want if falsify it - otherwise you're constrained by the data being used)

You really should look at the graph before doing all this arguing about it... (there are plenty of countries within a similar life expectancy band to the US, but with far lower levels of spending, which can be seen in an instant looking at the graph)

The life expectancy game is a sham. The difference between the country with the highest and the United States which is 30^th on the list is roughly 6 years. As far as how much is spent to have that life expectancy per person is also irrelevant because of different lifestyles and population sizes. The Peoples republic of China on the island of Macau is ranked first in the world while the rest of the nation of China is ranked 76^th. Both have nationalized healthcare. Japan is ranked 2^nd in the world for life expectancy with 127 million people and government run healthcare. Not bad until you ask a citizen how much he pays in taxes for this healthcare. Are you willing to fork over 50% of your income to get free healthcare? We have a country of 300 million people, to provide government healthcare would bankrupt the nation in 30 years. I say 30 years because when the UK went to UHC it was fine for about 20 years then the weight of taking care of the old bit them in the butt.

The UK has a higher life expectancy at 78.7 years with their UHC we don’t have that but our rate is 78.06 it is not UHC that increases or decreases life expectancy it is where and how you live that determines how long you live on average.

Which part of "the page will not load" do you not understand?

ok. I got the graph...

0. If the graph is really based on the CIA world factbook than I trust it, I already said that. I originally pointed out that just some random website is not a reliabile source. (at the time I couldn't load the page for some reason, so I could not see where they got their data).

1. The usa has the highest health expenditure... it also has the nearly the highest expectancy... the vast majority of countries with lower expenditures have much lower expectancy. note the USA has 78 years. the highest, japan, has 82. the lowest, zambia has 41.

2. Many reasons have been given as to why a direct link between health expenses and life expectancy does not exist. Such as cultural choices (everyone loves to point out how fat americans are, except when debating healthcare).

3. The main reason for the USA having such high health expenditure is excessive litigation. This has absolutely NOTHING to do with capitalist vs socialist, those other first world countries HAVE limits on litigation, the current administration wants to socialize our healthcare WITHOUT limiting litigation, which makes sense because the american trial lawyer association is one of the biggest money supporters of BO.

Here is where I put costs of healthcare in the USA (Lit = litigious, Soc = socialized, cap = capitalist):

Non-Lit + Cap < Non-Lit + Soc < Lit+Cap (current) < Lit + Soc (Obamacare)

4. So... best country in the world as far as life expectancy is japan, 82 years (land of fish and rice... healthy)... it's spending matches ireland (land of beer) which also has 78 years (just like the USA - land of mcdonnalds), also spending the same are nicaragua at 72, and zimbabwe at 42. All of these countries have the same spending... sure the worse in the world has much less spending and they get 41 years... but unless you pick and choose your information, you see that there is no tangible link between per capita % of GDP spending on healthcare and life expectancy.

So one person who married a Canadian 'to get healthcare' is the basis of your statement?

Like walking in the rain and the snow when there's nowhere to go 
When you're feeling like a part of you is dying
And you're looking for the answer in her eyes

An 'instant' appears to be the amount of time you've actually thought about this stuff.

Precisely, you haven't seen it, and yet are commenting extensively on it. If the page doesn't load, then don't comment so much on it, especially with direct attacks on it's reliability when you don't even know what you're talking about because you haven't seen it by your own admission. It's like writing a critical review of a book or film based on it's title without having read/seen any of it.

No sham. Most people would consider healthcare linked to life expectancy, although there are obviously other factors coming into play such as diet+lifestyle. It gives a nice starting place to look at though, although a more detailled study taking into account various other related variables would be welcome. A basic life expectancy+healthcare spending graph (or data) is far more evidence than any of you have given though.

Even if assumed to be correct, that's an advantage of moving to a UHC system - the state would end up paying for all that litigation, and hence would likely be more interested in curbing it.

What about per capita spending itself? Do you accept that a country that spent say $1000 on healthcare per person would be expected to have lower life expectancy than an identical country that spent $5000 on healthcare per person? If so, then looking at healthcare spending as a % of GDP is still of some use providing you make sure you group countries in rough GDP per capita bands.

Looking at all of Europe+central asia, for example, there is a clear trend in the data. These will be countries which for the most part are within a broad gdp range, whilst they are geographically close and hence the effects of other variables such as lifestyle differences will be reduced (compared to say comparing Ireland with Malawi).

The irony of stating that in a 1 line response is clearly lost on you!

BIG assumption there.  And not something I've seen in any of the bills.

So clearly flawed and insufficient evidence should just be accepted.  I'll accept it as a 'starting place' but not a valid argument in support of the notion that UHC (by itself) = higher life expectancy per %GDP.

And I know personally candians that came to the USA for the healthcare. Actually I know personally a couple, a rich female lawyer and her stay at home husband. The husband rags on the american healthcare system, and says canadas is awesome. The wife says the opposite (or was it the other way around?)... So what?

aeortar, I was responding to CLAIMS you guys were making. And its web address is sufficient to qualify it as a NON authoratative source.

Then most people are idiots, because this shows there is no link:

Here's a great dissection of the prevarications and dissembling of BO at the Portsmouth, NH, 'town hall' this past week.

Good one, anymore jokes? It is against the law to sue the government except in very rare ocasions. You can sue for information but not damages. As a vet I can't sue because of malpractice which is why if a doctor is close to losing their license they go to work for the VA. What makes you think that the government is going to open itself up to litigation after spending huge wads of our money to provide us with healthcare? If a government employee is injured on the job and it is the governments fault you can sue. if you win they give you compensation but they do not pay lawyers fees. That is why there are only three lawyers in my state that even do federal damage suits. The system is designed to discourage law suits. There is no money in it for the lawyers so they don't do that kind of law.

Interesting little tidbit from this article in the WSJ:

This is consistent with my contention that the 'free-er' healthcare gets for the individual, the more expensive it becomes for society.

taltamir, you know a wealthy person who would like to jump the Canadian queue for her health care by spending more money in the US? Shocker. If she wants to do so, that's her call. For all I know, it was for plastic surgery. I was merely pointing out one case of an American taking advantage of the Canadian system. There are plenty of Americans who have moved to the UK, France and northern Europe (Sweden, Norway, etc.) for better social services. Yes, they have higher taxation. But it's not like the US is a tax haven as it is.

The life expectancy graph was just one piece of the puzzle. It's a starting point. Since you're spending the highest % of your GDP on health care, you should logically be the best in virtually every category. Life expectancy, infant mortality, various cancers – these are just a few of the many things the US is not the best in the world at combatting. Since your government spends the most on health care, though, than virtually any other nation in the world, we can conclude that this money is being poorly spent, and has been for quite some time (similar comparisons over the past decade have come to the same conclusion). Therefore, it's probably time to try something different.

I was always taught that a business is not a charity. To business owners, this is a given – they need to make a decent profit to keep going. That's the comparison. I see it another way, too. Charities should not become a business. The insurance providers in the US are trying to please both shareholders, who would like to see increased profits, and their customers, who would like to make insurance claims. And you know what? Insurance companies can't meet both demands. It's a broken system.

Daiwa: there was very little information in that article as a comparison to UHC programs outside of that paragraph. Even within that paragraph, there are only two pieces of data. For all I know, Canada's per-capita out of pocket expenses could be 10.1%.

Oh, and for those who want to read it, here's the full text of the bill.