OP is correct, actually. I am not sure how you define or measure "standard of living" but common measurements include human development index [1] and quality o

OP is correct, actually. I am not sure how you define or measure "standard of living" but common measurements include human development index [1] and quality of life index [2]. by both measurements the US lags behind many european countries. life expectancy in the US has been declining [3]. and the corruption in US healthcare is massive [4], especially considering that it can be three times more expensive for worse outcomes, and because it takes up such a large portion of the economy. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Dev... [2] https://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/rankings_by_country.jsp https://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/rankings_by_country.j... [3] https://www.bmj.com/content/367/bmj.l6753 https://www.bmj.com/content/367/bmj.l6753 [4] https://mebassett.info/healthcare-ppp.html https://mebassett.info/healthcare-ppp.html PS Am a US citizen who lives in the UK and travels (or did precovid) to the east coast and west coast of the US and to EU capitals regularly.