Is a poorly functioning health care system to blame for low life expectancy in the U.S.?
Life expectancy in the U.S. lags below that in other industrialized countries. This is particularly true for life expectancy at age 50, which is 3.3 years lower than in Japan and 1.5 years lower than in Australia, Canada, France, Italy, Iceland, Spain, and Switzerland. The U.S. also spends more on health care than other countries — 16 percent of GDP in 2007, or as President Obama recently noted, “almost fifty percent more per person than the next most costly nation.” The coincidence of these two facts has led some policy makers and health analysts to wonder if a highly inefficient U.S. health care system is to blame for poor health outcomes.
