I'm surprised that what are generally considered the richest countries are all at the bottom: Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, France, Germany, etc. The difference in working hours between those and the US is huge: 1307 - 1362 hours/year compared to 1777 hours/year.

Also, in some countries there are many people working for themselves (such as in small businesses). These people generally work more than the official time.

I had a family member work for 14 hours a week (10 hours saturday and sunday) while starting their own business (this went on for two years).

Small business owners break the law a lot and work more than the allotted time.

No comment on the 'luxury' claim; that's too subjective for me.

Life expectancy in Japan is 83.

Hypothesis: ethnicity plays a strong role in determining life expectancy. The fact that Japan is 99.4% Asian while the US is only 5% Asian may drag the US down a bit.

If you compare the US with Canada, which has a similar mixed ethnicity, the dollars to life expectancy is still way better in Canada.

To save some time, I think the typical libertarian argument is to admit the system in the US actually does stink in terms of costs, and argue that if only we had a truly free market, where people could instruct their ambulance drivers to drive around shopping for the best price/performance ratio for their emergency surgery, then things would be better in the US.

This just goes around and around and around, though, doesn't it. I somehow suspect we won't see "health care economics problems solved on niche web site" as tomorrow's headlines.

I love to talk about this stuff with people in person, but the bandwidth of a web site is just too low - people write books on these subjects, for pete's sake.

False. Canada has more long lived Asians and far fewer short lived Blacks (and "some other race") than the US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Canada

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Stat...

In any case, I'm not asserting that ethnicity is the only factor affecting life expectancy. My claim is that many factors affect life expectancy and health care is way down the list in terms of magnitude (once you reach first world levels). Thus, using life expectancy as a proxy for health care is simply a terrible idea.

... and around ...

Much like free time, claims about costs are easily googleable.

I'm in the UK so I rather like knowing that everyone has access to pretty decent healthcare which is free at the point of delivery. If I want fancier stuff or a slightly nicer room or more quickly than what the NHS can provide I can always go private. However, I've never done that and I don't know anyone who has for anything major.