We beat Japan on life expectancy, provided you restrict the comparison to people of Japanese descent. Japanese Americans live 84.5 years on average, Japanese only 82.6.
http://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/templates/browse.aspx?lvl=2...
http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_le...
(Would love to see data doing similar comparisons to other G8 nations.)
That's despite people of Asian descent in the US having higher income and education than the average, both of which are positively correlated with life expectancy.
Even if it is true, I'm not sure what the significance would be. I would be surprised if you couldn't pick out many subgroups in the US which do better in the US than in their places of origin, without it supporting an argument about the quality of the overall system.
Even if it is true, I'm not sure what the significance would be. I would be surprised if you couldn't pick out many subgroups in the US which do better in the US than in their places of origin, without it supporting an argument about the quality of the overall system.
Very true. To actually make the argument you are trying to make, you'd actually need to do a carefully controlled study. But most such studies (which include ethnicity, rural living, diet, etc as predictors) actually show no significant relationship between marginal changes in health care and health outcomes.