Surely the point was that the difference between internal regions of the EU and USA are much higher than that between the averages. Someone worried about lifes

Surely the point was that the difference between internal regions of the EU and USA are much higher than that between the averages. Someone worried about lifespan in either would do much better to look at local outcomes and the reasons for them (c.f. figuring out why Latvia lags the France, or what's wrong in Alabama that Massachusetts is so far ahead) than it is to dither over what the people across the ocean are doing.