And I don't think it is European health care systems.

I think health care needs to be a social good, not a commodity. We can pay for it with our taxes and take the profiteering out of it. And all those illness pimps will have to find an honest way to make a living.

It's just politically impossible to implement right now That's why we need more progressives and fewer DINOs and Republicans running things.

It is not health care as the reason, but what we eat. We eat way worse then Europe.

The reason that our health care has such an impact on life expectancy is that we have poor people dying of treatable illnesses.

While it may be true that a lot of those treatable illnesses may be due to diet, how many people would change their eating habits if their doctor advised them how important it was? The people who don't have access to health care.

So it's a lot of both.

Obesity is largely responsible. If we didn't have excellent healthcare in the US, I shudder to think what the mortality rates would be.

If you look at the infant mortality rates, we're in a similar bad situation there:



And there's really no way to blame that on obesity. Poverty (or more properly, massive inequality, as we are one of the richest countries) and poor healthcare are the main drivers.

obesity is a very large part of it.

As for infant mortality, I've had this discussion more than once. It's because heroic measures are undertaken here for extremely sick and premature newborns, which skews the numbers compared to other countries.

earlier and fix them. My husband and mother in law both were overweight and saw their doctor regularly. My mother in law was diagnosed with diabetes. She lost weight and is no longer diabetic. My husband was found to be pre-diabetic, lost weight and is no longer pre-diabetic. Neither one gave up their favorite foods. They still eat candy and french fries. They just ate them less often, lost weight and solved their health problem. So, even with obesity a good health care system helps people live longer.

I wonder why we can't manage that.

It may help to manage the diseases it causes, but it doesn't address the root problem.

Again, the reason our mortality rate isn't higher is because many are managing their diseases associated with it. Without that management, our rates would be through the roof.

I bet our life expectancy won't be so low.

you should try them