[chrischapman]

Upvote for 'Oh Goodie' and the humour in general. But had to reflect on the sad reality of the following being in green!

> spend 99.58% less money on health care

That is apparently a 'benefit' of living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. When compared to:

> die 23.88 years sooner

perhaps the health care statistic should have been in red?

[DangitBobby]

This criticism doesn't make sense. You could argue that the expense is a contributing factor to why the US' healthcare is better, and if it had a single category that said "healthcare is 90% better in other country because it costs less" then that would be misleading somehow. But that's not at all what happened. They gave two metrics: comparative life expectancy and comparative healthcare expense. The metric where your country fares better is red, the one where it fares worse is green. You cannot argue that lower cost isn't purely better if you are solely examining that single metric. Splitting it into separate metrics allows you to do so.

Your backlash against the representation says more about your beliefs than it does about the site.

[sigmaprimus]

That was somewhat of an ad hominem attack, I believe the point that was being made is that Red and Green have certain connotations, generally Red = Bad, Stop, Danger and Green = Good, Go, Safe. I don't think it has anything to do with ones beliefs and though it may indicate an opinion, there is no value in criticizing someone for having a different opinion when they provide it in the appropriate space such as a comments' forum.

[DangitBobby]

> Red and Green have certain connotations, generally Red = Bad, Stop, Danger and Green = Good, Go, Safe.

Yes, this was understood. The context I gave my answer in was after seeing other comments which indicated that the site was somehow designed to make the US look bad. The only reason I can even fathom for how a commentor would question the inclusion of the healthcare cost metric is from embarassment at healthcare costs here and wishing to justify it with a discussion of outcomes (which, as I pointed out earlier, is already included in the life-expectancy metric).

I don't see how any interpretation of their comment can get around the fact that GP doesn't agree that healthcare costs should have been included as a "benefit", which I take issue with. Healthcare costs are a valid concern, and something I'd look into before emigrating. To me, big healthcare costs is a gigantic red flag for a country. In fact, health care costs (and other sensibilities around public welfare) are near the top of the list for why I might some day emigrate.

Why do you think GP doesn't see lower healthcare costs as a benefit?

[sigmaprimus]

If I was to make a guess, I would say because unfortunate as it is, innovations in the health care field are currently driven by profit.

I am not sure if the argument regarding life expectancy being tied to healthcare costs is a valid one as there are so many other factors, but I do know that there is somewhat of a brain drain that tends to draw health specialists from countries with lower health care costs to the US. Eg: According to Google... An anesthesiologist's average annual salary in Canada is $218,069 where as in the US the average is $403,300 and that is without doing any currency exchange. This results in a reduced number of surgeries in Canada as it is required to have an anesthesiologist present when ever someone is sedated, and that results in long waiting lists, especially for non essential surgeries such as those for knee or back pain. 2 years or more is not unusual before getting a referral to see a specialist and then there can be just as long of a wait for the surgery. Basically in Canada we have very low health care costs but also defacto bread lines for medical treatment.