Talking about the overall life expectancy accounts for any number of variables (including murder, which is by far more common in the U. S.). That's why I was specifically looking at the efficacy of the medical system, which as I showed, seems to be more effective at extending the lives of patients.

Further, the study you cite notes that infant mortality is higher in the U. S. than other developed countries. While the study doesn't give a reason for this, some of theorized it's exactly because the U. S. is better at pre-natal care than other nations are. Pregnancies in England, for instance, that would end in miscarriage, come to term in the U. S. as premature babies. The death rate of premature babies is higher in any country than those brought to full term.

Now, then, this is interesting: "One of the main problems faced by the US, says the report, is that one in six Americans, or about 47 million people, are not covered by health insurance and so have limited access to healthcare." This is pure conjecture. And purely wrong. Very, very few Americans really don't have access to health insurance. Most of the uninsured are so by choice, not because they have no options. By some estimates, 95% of the uninsured in America could either buy it but choose not to, or already qualify for assistance and fail to take advantage of it.

"I'd have thought the sub prime crisis was a pretty clear example of markets trading in junk information “ And, of course, you'd have thought wrong. I'm not sure how it worked in Europe (where, of course, the English have more consumer credit problems than we do. Bless their hearts.), but here you could see in 2001 that people were getting 5 year interest only ARM loans. That meant that a guy who made $30,000 a year could by a $120,000 for around $500 per month for five years. Of course, at the end of five years the rate would go to whatever the market rate was at the time. Given that we had just seen 19% interest rates in the mid-1980s on mortgages, there was no reason to believe rates would always be 4%. When the ARM adjusts up to 8% or 9%, and the borrower has to pay back interest + principle, they payment goes from $500 per month to around $1100 per month. They only made $2500 per month. It was bloody obvious to anybody with a brain that this wasn't going to work out. There was no "junk information", there was greed. Poor people wanted to live like middle class people, and the middle class wanted to live like rich people.

Of course, the U. S. bans drugs that are allowed in Europe. The fact that we get different drugs says nothing at all. Over-excited regulators in France just allowed the sell of Red Bull energy drinks today, after spending 5-years and who knows how much money to determine that taurine wasn't dangerous.

Keep in mind as well that the growth potential in Europe is damaged by all of this spending. With your 5% inflation and 12% unemployment, high tax burden and bloated social programs, European governments are cutting costs at every turn. Your model is unsustainable. That's always been the problem with socialism.