Such a conclusion requires that %GDP spent on healthcare be the sole determinant of life expectancy & infant mortality, which it clearly is not.  It's also clear that you're not up to speed on cancer survival rates in the US vs., say, Canada and the UK - they're better here.  And were my wife to give birth to a seriously premature infant (not possible, just hypothetically speaking), there's nowhere else that child's chances of survival would be as good as here, let alone better.  Sorry, but %GDP is an intellectually lazy argument.

Well, it seems there is another healthcare system being described as 'unsustainable' - by its own doctors.

Care to guess?  This is rich, really rich.  And the timing is exquisite.

Wait, your contention is that because we spend more we should be the best? We have a higher population of old folks that is what the country spends most of its healthcare dollars on. A nation of 300 million and almost a third of that is my age group 50's and higher, medicare and medicaid is government run, and partially government funded the rest of us pay our own way. So yes, we pay more per person treated because we treat everyone regardless of their ability to pay and bill them later. If you are poor the government picks up the tab, if you are old the government picks up the tab unless you have the money to pay out of pocket. Healthcare is not rationed as it is in other countries. waiting three to five years for a hip replacement is unheard of in America. As I pointed out before Japan ranks second in the world for life expectancy but how many old people do they have to take care of compaired to America? Don't forget the difference of six years. All this arguing is over the average difference of six years. Eat fish and rice as your staples and you live maybe 6 years longer than the person that eats at McDonalds.

Better insufficient evidence than no evidence at all

Ceteris paribus it should be. Hence if it isn't that unless there are other factors that can be shown to explain away all of the difference, there is likely (more) inefficiency in how that money is used.

If anything you'd expect that to be beneficial due to economies of scale.

One possible explanation - how do the demographics compare with other countries though?

Well since you've not provided any comparative figures, I decided I'd get some instead.

US 2009 est: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States#Age_structure:

65 years and over: 12.8%

UK 2008 est: http://www.indexmundi.com/united_kingdom/demographics_profile.html

65 years and over: 16% (and increasing, so the 2009 est would be expected to be the same or higher, not lower)

You'd probably have more luck if you went with the 'bashing the fat' factor

I don't know about you, but 6 years is a long time to me. It's also the arguing over trillions of dollars worth of spending, since if the 6 years is in any way down to the healthcare system of the country in question, and it is spending less, then you could save lots of money by adopting their system, spending less, and without having life expectancy take a hit, assuming you're able to effectively emulate their system.

In case you missed it.

This is even worse than what we have now... it is better to have expensive but safe medical care due to crazy lawsuits than abolish lawsuits alltogether. We need payout LIMITS (say, 1/4th of a million dollars), not the elimination of compensation.

why is everyone ignoring this?

How about one of you intelligently respond to this instead of skirting the issue with hyperboles (is hyperbole the right name for it?) likes "Better insufficient evidence than no evidence at all"

Hard to have an intelligent conversation when you come out with stuff like this:

If healthcare has no affect on life expectancy, what is the point of having any healthcare at all?

Can anybody tell me why some people should be forced to pay for expensive treatment for other people while so many more lives could be saved for less money?

The fact is that there are many places in the world where some very little, compared to Obama's or any public health care plan, money would be enough to raise public healthcare standards considerably. Instead the money is used for patients who already have a chance.

Once we have decided that we can take people's money and spend it on other people's health (which I understand is a moral thing to do and I won't argue it), can we not also decide that the number of lives saved and people covered by basic health care is the metric we should go for?

Tax Americans and use the money to bring African healthcare systems to the standard of the current American system for poor people.

I understand conservatives will tell me that doing so would be wrong because it is wrong to take people's money to give it to others, even in the form of free healthcare.

But can liberals tell me what's wrong about my alternative to Obama's healthcare system and why Obama's healthcare plan is morally superior to my proposal?

And this is what it comes down to. Once we decide that taking money from one group to provide something to another, we have to figure out which other, and why not others still.

A conservative is here someone who refuses to give except voluntarily. A liberal is someone who takes and then uses an arbitrary system to determine who should receive.

It's not the most needy who will benefit from this system. It is not the most needy at all. The most needy are not even part of the discussion because they don't live in America. And yet, we are told, it is the American system that needs repairing. How can that be?

I'd be darned, I was sure it was "healcare SPENDING" ... in context, it WAS money spent on health care being a direct link to expectancy.

And you are still cowardly avoiding an answer; you attack me because there is absolutely NOTHING you can do to counter my argument. "oh boohoo the evil man is mean and disrespectful of us"

On the other hand, yes I off handedly insulted people who completely ignore facts to concoct their imaginary little world by calling them stupid. But I only do so after presenting irrefutable evidence. Just as I offhandedly laugh at those who claim the earth is flat. When someone is that delusional or stupid than I have no obligation to respect their opinion. Show me an intelligent counter argument and I will respectfully debate it, until then I am going to point and laugh.

Again, the strawman, the left's BFF.

Of course healthcare has an 'affect' on life expectancy.  The issue is whether the financing mechanism of healthcare is the determining factor in improving life expectancy.  The alleged relationship between what we spend on healthcare and what we get, measured solely by life expectancy, is a staple argument of the left in favor of UHC.  They offer no details or support for the conclusion that differences in life expectancy should necessarily parallel %GDP but they argue we're getting too little for our healthcare dollar.  No analysis of any other factors at all.  No questioning about what the 'right amount' of spending ought to be.  Nothing.  Just life expectancy divided by %GDP.  It's like the lawyer's objection - assumes a fact not in evidence.

And it ALWAYS ignores the FACT that countries with IDENTICAL spending have vastly different expectancy. to the tune of the longest in the world (82 in japan), and one year longer than the worst in the world (zimbabwe 42) and many in between

You mean bring american standards down to their level. Communism is about making everyone equally POOR. Because there are a lot more poor people out there...

That is because africans (who live in africa, not african americans) don't get to vote in america. Liberal parasites do.

I AM STILL WAITING FOR AN INTELLIGENT COUNTER TO MY #1 ARGUMENT!...

How is it that countries with equal spending have the longest lifespan @ 82 years, and all the way down to 42 years!

let me remind you, you all crucified me when I dared to doubt the source of the data. So since it is an absolute fact that this graph you linked is pure accuracy, how in the world do you explain this discrepancy?

This is just one of the fundamental flaws in the %GDP argument, another being that there's no evidence that the financing mechanism is the reason %GDP in the US is higher.

Nobody, not even UHC's proponents, can truly believe, for even a heartbeat, that moving to UHC will save us a dime.  They want desperately to believe it, so they can at least sound sincere when they try to sell it, but it's a fabrication, a myth, the wishfullest of thinking.

The sky-is-falling rhetoric about healthcare 'consuming' too much of our GDP and 'bankrupting' us is hogwash, as if it were nothing but a bonfire of cash.  The follow-on argument about it 'crippling our competitiveness' can be resolved by simply pulling one's head out of one's ass & looking around - we seem to have done OK relative to the rest of the world.  The only industries which have been 'harmed' by healthcare costs took them on voluntarily (including me, BTW, though I don't compete internationally), the domestic auto industry being the prime example.

Strawman arguments on several levels.

First, paying more for health care is not something I think is a bad thing on its own.

Second, using blanket life expectancy at birth has no relevance to the quality of health care.

If you want to compare, compare cancer survival rates or long term survival rates for those diagnosed with heart problems.  I.e. compare the results of people receiving health care.

No, I actually meant that it would be morally superior to spend less money than is planned for Obama's public healthcare system and spend it on public healthcare systems for poor African countries instead.

We can save more lives by spending less.

And if a liberal can explain to me why an American life is worth a hundred times more than ten African lives, I'd like to hear how this works.

(This does not affect people who pay for their own healthcare by themselves or via an existing insurance plan. They do not affect other people. But taking money from a group and then using it not for the most needy has an effect on other people.)

I understand that. I am questioning the morality of a public healthcare system, not the viability of getting votes for it.

If taking money from A to pay for the healthcare of B because B is too poor to pay for it himself is morally superior to letting B fence for himself, how come it is not morally more superior to take money from A and give it to C, a poor African who unlike B never even had the chance to fence for himself?

Three models:

A keeps his money. B fences for himself. C dies. This is what conservatives propose. I am ignoring charity which A has money for and should engage in.

A is forced to pay. B gets the money. C dies. This is what liberals propose. A has less money for charity because keeping alive one B is more expensive than keeping alive ten C.

A is forced to pay. B fences for himself. C gets the money. This is my idea. It seems more efficient to me, since we can save more C than B for less money taken from A.

The conservative position is what's mine is mine. My position is let's save as many lives as possible while stealing less from A than other plans would. What's the liberal ideal?

Late to the party, but here's my 2 cents.

Life expectancy per capita from the CIA handbook - What it doesn't say is how much US $$$ in research and development in medical technology is better lack of term, subsidizing the rest of the world. I'd put the US's medical innovations in equipment, procedures, and medicines to any other country in the world. So other nations, enjoy your national health care now because your biggest researcher and world benefactor, the US, will soon be on the budget system.

If this Obamacare is such a good thing, why aren't Congress and the Senate planning to adapt it for themselves? Hell, we pay for their medical coverage now, is what's good for the goose not good enough for them? Seems the new "plantation owners" only want to wear the cotton, not pick it. It's ashame how many low income and minorities are lining up to do just that for their new overlords. 

If I'm paying for health insurance and paying increased taxes for others health coverage, where is the incentive for me to keep paying twice? Obama's "keep your health care insurance plan if you like it" statement is a farce. Who in their right mind wants to pay double? The 47 million uninsured figure they toss around will be a drop in the bucket if Obamacare is passed.

Why in all of natures creatures, are humans, especially liberals, so out of touch will the natural order? In nature, if a squirrel doesn't put away enough nuts for winter, it dies. Today, in the US if a person lives irresponsibly, makes no attempt to better themselves or improve their situation legally, no problem, just take from those that do. 

Squirrels steal from each other too.

After all, Obama said words to this effect on the Today Show during the primary campaign in 2008:

'Everybody should have access to a health plan at least as good as what I have as a Senator and that's what I'm going to fight for as president.'

I've been paying attention as closely as I can and I don't believe that's exactly what he's 'fighting for as president.'

Natch, at the time he was on the Today Show & said that, the lies to be told were those necessary to defeat Hillary.  An entirely different set of lies is required now to lubricate his steamroller.

I'm avoiding an answer, and there's NOTHING I can do to counter your argument?

Well seeing how you said that people were idiots if they thought healthcare was linked to life expectancy, countering that is countering your argument, and is providing an answer. It's not my fault if you made a mistake and chose to state something that wasn't fully reflective of your views, and your manner of confessing to such a mistake leaves a lot to be desired!

Anyway now that you seem to agree that healthcare is linked to life expectancy, we can move on to the next step in the logic chain:

The more you spend on healthcare, the better the effect on life expectancy should be, ceteris paribus.

Now are people idiots for thinking that? If not, we can move on to step 3!

Ignoring the morals and focusing more on the pragmatic side, it would be more difficult to administer healthcare to a different country, which would increase the scope for waste, inefficiencies and/or corruption. In addition healthcare provided within your own country means that you (as a government) receive the benefits. That is, if the healthcare helps make people live longer, and/or keep them productive (i.e. not sick), then that means they can produce more, so the economy benefits, and tax revenues increase.

Of course I'd be surprised if these factors combined were enough to bring the 'life saving' close to a parity, and would expect that you could still achieve more 'years of saved life' by spending it in Africa than in the US, but it wouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility.

In terms of the moral side, every developed country I know of has an inherant moral judgement that the lives of their citizens are worth more than the lives of non-citizens, and this can most easily be seen by their immigration policy. Unless they have an 'open borders' policy where anyone no matter where they are can enter the country (with basic exceptions such as security risks/criminals etc.) then in my mind there is an implicit judgement that their citizens lives are worth more than outsiders (although there could be other factors/reasons that might affect this).

That was a typo, which you even quoted my correction of. I was saying that healthcare spending in GPU% is unrelated to life expectancy. Aka, the data shown in the graph shows absolutely no corrolation between the Y and X axis. Not that RECEIVING HEALTHCARE (aka, treatments and medicine) has no relationship. Receiving medicine can certainly increase life expectancy.

I am sorry but that is simply not a counter to this:

Try again.

Already countered a long time ago (see reply 42). Your response to it was your 'most people are idiots' comment.

ok, let me look back at 42...

I am sorry I asked for an INTELLIGENT counter. Most people "beleive" is not an intelligent argument. The earth is round even though when galileo claimed it is so most people beleived it to be flat. A recent survey by popular science showed the majority beleiving you can make a laser out of sound, that dinosaurs and humans lived at the same era, and that the sun revolved around the earth (don't ask me how they got that wrong)

Also you again create a strawman argument by ignoring the SPENDING portion of what we say and pretend that we see no link between HEALTHCARE (aka, doctors and medicine) and life expectancy.

And there I was thinking you'd finally accepted it wasn't stupid to believe healthcare is linked to life expectancy. There really is no point trying to open your eyes, since you insist on having them shut the entire time.

Well I guess if you've got your eyes closed it's kind of easy to miss things. I suggest you read back on previous posts since this has already been addressed as well. Do try to keep up.