NZ? I use examples I'm familiar with because I'm from Christchurch. > we pay less and live longer than in America It's a common myth that this is due to healt

NZ? I use examples I'm familiar with because I'm from Christchurch. > we pay less and live longer than in America It's a common myth that this is due to healthcare costs: but the implied cause/effect is a lie. Americans die younger due to a variety of preventable factors (the term lifestyle factors is commonly misused and societal factors is likely better). The ambulance and doctors don't fix those factors. For example "Two years difference in life expectancy probably comes from the fact that firearms are so available in the United States,". The maternal mortality rate in the US is considerably higher than the rate in other wealthy countries such as the UK. The infant mortality rate in the United States is also grim. Based on self-reported illnesses and biological markers of disease, US residents are much less healthy than their English counterparts and these differences exist at all points of the [socioeconomic] distribution. The poor and the wealthy are unhealthier in the US. Cherrypicked health decisions don't help explain fairness. It isn't just childhood upbringing, because the statistics for immigrants trend towards the American mean. I'm ignoring your strawman implications: you don't know me or what I believe or how much empathy I have. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that we all want more healthcare. How do we choose how much to spend? My strawman is that I think you are saying we should spend more (especially on the poor). And specifically I'm guessing you think that we should make anyone wealthier than you pay more and more. There is no limit to how much is fair to pay for things we can't easily value like our time and our lives. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16670412/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16670412/ https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.117.032047 https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.117.0... https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/03/25/1164819944/live-free-and-die-the-sad-state-of-u-s-life-expectancy https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/03/25/1164819...