[kragen]

> I've heard that the US lifespan is world-longest if you adjust for accidents and homicide, two things that aren't affected by healthcare.

Other measures of health care quality, such as infant mortality, are worse in the US than in many other countries. So I doubt it.

[miked]

Other measures of health care quality, such as infant mortality, are worse in the US...

Nope. The US spends far more on trying to save the lives of premature and sickly newborns than any other country. Many these don;t make it after being born and show up in the stats as "high infant mortality". This approach also drives up health care costs.

One can argue (having met two crack babies that survived, I personally would be tempted to in many cases) that US hospitals shouldn't do this, but nevertheless they do do it. And it costs money and skews statistics.

I also have personally experienced health care in other countries (Greece, Mexico, China -- where my wife was a doctor). No thanks.

[kragen]

The US spends far more on trying to save the lives of premature and sickly newborns than any other country.

[citation needed]

Many these don;t make it after being born and show up in the stats as "high infant mortality".

That's true in every country, regardless of how hard you try to save their lives. More of them make it after being born if you try very hard to save their lives.

I also have personally experienced health care in other countries (Greece, Mexico, China

So have I. I surely don't need to point out to you, with your wide travel experience, that not all other countries are equal. The Argentine health care I've experienced is head and shoulders above anything I've experienced in the US, although that's mostly because I live in the capital where things are good.

The US's infant mortality rate is about .0063. Greece's is about .005 to .007. Mexico's is .017 or .018. China's is about .020 to .023. Your personal experience that care is much worse in those countries, with the exception of Greece, supports the validity of infant mortality as a measure of care quality; it does not undermine it.

There are around 25 countries with better infant mortality than the US, but that doesn't include the three you listed. Several of them have less than half the infant mortality level of the US. Have you personally experienced health care in any of them? What was your experience?

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_count...

I recognize that statistics do not always capture the reality of a situation. However, in this case, I don't think it's adequate to simply deny their validity without any evidence. (The evidence you have adduced so far, from your personal experience, supports their validity rather than undermining it.)

[anamax]

> There are around 25 countries with better infant mortality than the US,

With comparable populations?

For example, Scandanavians do well everywhere. (However, the US ones do better than the ones who didn't leave.) A population dominated by Scandanavians will do better than one that is more "typical".

I'm pretty sure that the US healthcare system is not responsible for crank and crack mothers, but it gets "credit" for their birth problems.