>There's a HUGE amount of private responsibility in your health. And you'll find it very strange, maybe, that countries with large welfare systems like France have an extraordinary amount of "sick" people.
Citation needed. All the evidence I've seen is that the French are much healthier than Americans.
Average life expectancy in France is 81 years, in the US it's 78 years.
On the other hand in 2008 Forbes compiled a list of the 15 healthiest countries based on a range of factors. France were number 15, the US were number 11.
Broadly I think they're probably about the same - essentially healthy Western nations who could do better.
For me the most interesting statistic about nationalised healthcare vs. the US model of private healthcare (other models are available) is the cost:
The US pays more per person on healthcare admin than the UK pays into the NHS in total.
Did you read my sentence? There is HUGE amount of private responsibility in your health. What you eat makes a difference on how you end up aging, it is well proven. For overall health statistics, you can go to the WHO website, but a quick info about depression:
"Based on detailed interviews with over 89,000 people, the results showed that 15% of the population from high-income countries (compared to 11% for low/middle-income countries) were likely to get depression over their lifetime with 5.5% having had depression in the last year. MDE were elevated in high-income countries (28% compared to 20%) and were especially high (over 30%) in France, the Netherlands, and America. "
Citation needed. All the evidence I've seen is that the French are much healthier than Americans.