By the end of this comment, you're talking about the same stuff that Yglesias is, but most of the preceding comment that I responded to was about health outcomes, and part of the thrust of the article is that health outcomes aren't determinative of the life expectancy gap in the US, because that gap is dominated by drugs, guns, and, most especially, cars.

I agree with what you're saying at the end of this comment: if your policy goal is to reduce the life expectancy gap, interventions in health care and nutrition aren't likely to pay off, but interventions in urban design or economic mobility (to combat the drugs and guns) likely will. Which is why, if you believe what this article is saying, you should probably flinch when people write long comments about potato chip advertising in response to it.