[jtedward]

The thing is it's not even really an argument, it's a rationalization. It's so strange to me that someone would even try to argue that life expectancy doesn't reflect the quality of health care. what conceivably could be gained by attempting to prove such a counter-intuitive thing?

[tanderson92]

My reading between the lines is that the health care system is set up perfectly well to accommodate long lives, if and only if you can afford to access it. The authors actually controlled for GDP per capita, so they made their aims plain. Their explanations for poor health outcomes for disadvantaged minorities was also income related.

Not once did they ask the question "why are health outcomes so stratified by income and wealth in the U.S.?", because their ideology is that that is acceptable.