The US health system is not to blame for the decline in our life expectancy
Sally Pipes
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Americans’ life expectancy is at a 20-year low. As a result, the gap in life expectancy between the United States and our global peers is progressively growing wider, according to a new report in the American Journal of Public Health.
For years, progressives have blamed the lack of universal health coverage in the United States for this disparity. But that blame is misplaced. Americans are dying earlier because of social and cultural factors, not because of deficiencies in our healthcare system.
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As of 2021, American life expectancy was 77 years. The average across all high-income countries, by contrast, was more than 82 years.
Why is life expectancy so low in the United States when we spend 18% of gross domestic product on healthcare — about twice as much as the average developed nation? The answers are largely beyond the control of the healthcare system.
Consider car crashes, which took the lives of over 45,000 Americans in 2021 — nearly 14 deaths per 100,000 people. In Germany, by contrast, the motor vehicle death rate was just over three deaths per 100,000 people.
Or take gun deaths. In 2019, the rate of firearm mortality was over 10 deaths per 100,000 people in the United States — roughly five times higher than the three next-closest countries: France, Switzerland, and Canada.
The U.S. drug overdose death and suicide rates are also the highest in the developed world.
These facts are tragic, but they’re by no means an indictment of our health system.
In fact, there’s no better place to get sick than the United States. For instance, our cancer death rates are among the lowest in the developed world. Canada’s westernmost province, British Columbia, has even started sending some cancer patients across the border to Washington state at an enormous cost to the provincial government — because it can’t offer them treatment in a timely manner.
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America’s world-leading health system is saving countless lives — not shortening them.
Sally C. Pipes is president, CEO, and Thomas W. Smith fellow in healthcare policy at the Pacific Research Institute. Her latest book is False Premise, False Promise: The Disastrous Reality of Medicare for All (Encounter 2020). Follow her on Twitter @sallypipes.