Im not saying it's good compared to other wealthy nations, the initial comparison was to the soviet union

I've heard before that it's a split distribution. The quality of healthcare & outcomes in the US is some of the worst in the world, if you are poor. It's some of the best in the world, if you are rich. Or so I've been told.

For example I was taught that a big part of why our maternal mortality is high, is because new mothers who are poor do not or cannot follow up with their doctor in the days after release from the hospital if something isn't right, e.g. when bleeding fresh blood instead of clotting. Visits to the doctor are expensive, and various barriers (such as language) may have prevented them from being educated on when to come back for help.

Im not saying it is a great healthcare system, just that it isn't so bad as to be comparable to the soviet union. At any rate, life expectancy also seems like a strange way to measure the health care system. To measure the health of the general population sure, but we're talking about the healthcare system, and I don't think that those who actively destroy their bodies via drugs or junk food are giving us an accurate picture of the real efficacy of the system. That being said if you want to look at those deaths and say the healthcare system isn't doing enough for them - then fair enough. I would just look at something like decreasing life expectancy caused by suicides and opioids and say maybe this has something to do with wealth inequality rather than the efficacy of our healthcare.

As other commenters have pointed out, life expectancy is only one variable in measuring the quality of a healthcare system.

As an example, due to Europe's propensity for biking and walking relative to the US, that certainly has a positive effect on life expectancy.

Another example would be the high caloric diets of many Americans. This exists for historical reasons (see: the history of fried chicken and its relationship to the South) and for economic reasons (those in poverty disproportionately consume cheap and high-calorie diets).

Neither of these are related to the quality or availability of health coverage, but instead, are infrastructure / sociological issues.