Healthcare

We're Number 49!

American healthcare is expensive and it doesn't help us live longer.

In 1950, the United States was fifth among the leading industrialized nations with respect to female life expectancy at birth, surpassed only by Sweden, Norway, Australia, and the Netherlands. The last available measure of female life expectancy had the United States ranked at forty-sixth in the world. As of September 23, 2010, the United States ranked forty-ninth for both male and female life expectancy combined. The United States does little better in international comparisons of mortality. Americans live 5.7 fewer years of "perfect health"—a measure adjusted for time spent ill—than the Japanese.

Meanwhile, per capita health spending in the United States increased at nearly twice the rate in other wealthy nations between 1970 and 2002. As a result, the United States now spends well over twice the median expenditure of industrialized nations on health care, and far more than any other country as a percentage of its gross domestic product (GDP).

If we work really hard, maybe we'll jump a few notches and pass Bosnia and Herzegovina (number 43). And, by the way, despite the awful violence and strife, Israel is number 12.

Yes, America has the best healthcare in the world.