[thrance]

In western Europe, governments have a vested interest in the good health of their citizens, because a healthy citizen costs less to the healthcare system.

The US government does not care that much about obesity, gun violence and all that jazz because it is not the one paying for the damages it does.

All these factors contribute to the comparatively poorer life expectancy of Americans, which is, I agree, only a surface metric.

[llamaimperative]

The government does end up paying for this via Medicare and Medicaid but doesn’t have good levers to solve it directly.

The more important dynamic you’re pointing to is that private insurers don’t care because our insurance is tied to our employers and therefore is expected (by insurers) to churn every 4 years or so.

It literally makes zero sense for a private insurer to invest in an American’s healthcare results more than 3 or so years down the road.

Surprise surprise, we have best-in-class care for emergencies and complex acute cases, and absolutely atrocious management of early disease and lifestyle problems (which is when it’s most cost-effective to solve health problems).