cekim said:
That is until the state decides it is done with you and adds you to the pile of 120M other people it has killed.
Accepting your argument as true arguendo, the life expectancy is still better in those countries.
1. We have socialism here too, in particular our medical system has been rather socialist in practice for decades
Medicare and Medicaid have been around for years. You won't win many elections by cutting seniors Medicaid as many politicians have discovered. Seniors aren't voting against a program that, for all its faults, works for them.
2. Those stats ignore demographics and diversity.
If you look a poor people and certain poor minorities, our system does not take very good care of them compared care given to the poor in the other countries ahead of us in longevity. We have something like 45+ million people with no medical coverage in the US. They have lower life expectancies than people with coverage. Countries ahead of us on that list provide health care for all on a relatively equal basis (some in those countries do have added private insurance, but that is still the exception and not the norm).
So, let's summarize your argument:
1. "Death camps are ok, because in the end, life expectancy goes up!" (which is likely true since you kill the weak - you fit right in with the progressives of the last century).
2. "Medicare has been around a long time so it works"
No, no it doesn't... Much as with your European argument it ignores some very broken, but long timeline malfunctions that are currently adding up to a currency crisis that has only just begun.
It does not matter if it is popular, it is unsustainable. It will fail in our lifetimes (it is failing now by virtue of polluting prices of medical care to the point that most people can no longer afford it).
Both parties can put their fingers in their ears and ignore this along with those on it and headed that way, but it doesn't change the structural failure in the system.
3. "Lower life expectancy due to lack of access to care"
ok, now that's a reasonable argument, to which I respond:
a. See cost issue from broken system - not from market failure, but failure of socialist systems we have already tried.
b. War on drugs and "normalization" of welfare has created a massive underclass of people incapable of participating in our economy.
c. Our economy has been crippled by other statist and socialist policies that have made it too cumbersome and expensive to keep production here that would have provided legitimate jobs.
The current climate of waiting around for .gov to decide which businesses live and die based on subsidy and risk guarantee is absolutely stifling to any sort of recovery. So, even if we had a work force unencumbered by ridiculous regulations and elevated costs, it currently makes more sense to do business elsewhere.
The life expectancy in this nation - one of the most diverse on the planet - is not evenly distributed. You are drawing a straight correlative (not causal) line to the lack of Euro-socialist healthcare as the cause when in reality there are quite a few factors that are feeding into that independent of healthcare which will remain even if you do manage to implement ObamaCare.