In any case, I'm not asserting that ethnicity is the only factor affecting life expectancy. My claim is that many factors affect life expectancy and health care is way down the list in terms of magnitude (once you reach first world levels). Thus, using life expectancy as a proxy for health care is simply a terrible idea.
Ok, but the real difference is in spending. People in the US live to 78, Canadians to 81, according to that site, which isn't a huge difference. The difference in spending, however, is, which is why the US is such an outlier on that chart.
I think that just a disagreement over how to interpret "best" - for an individual who can afford it the "best" health care is likely to be in the US. However, I suspect Europeans think of it as "pretty good health care for everyone" rather than "the absolutely the most effective health care for some".
I'm in the UK so I rather like knowing that everyone has access to pretty decent healthcare which is free at the point of delivery. If I want fancier stuff or a slightly nicer room or more quickly than what the NHS can provide I can always go private. However, I've never done that and I don't know anyone who has for anything major.
False. Canada has more long lived Asians and far fewer short lived Blacks (and "some other race") than the US.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Canada
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Stat...
In any case, I'm not asserting that ethnicity is the only factor affecting life expectancy. My claim is that many factors affect life expectancy and health care is way down the list in terms of magnitude (once you reach first world levels). Thus, using life expectancy as a proxy for health care is simply a terrible idea.