[AppleBananaPie]

This is probably incredibly naive so apologies if so - are things like differing obesity or other health problem causing conditions accounted for when looking at overall outcomes of the system?

The higher cost makes perfect sense to me but calculating an apples to apples comparison of health outcomes between potentially very different populations seems potentially very difficult? Again sorry it's probably a solved problem but figured I'd ask :)

[jandrewrogers]

The lower life expectancy in the US is almost entirely down to young people dying at a much higher rate than Europe due to car accidents, murder, and drug overdoses. It skews the averages pretty badly. If those individual risks don't apply to you then life expectancy is actually pretty decent.

There is a wide variance in the general healthiness of the population depending on where you live in the US, which does affect life expectancy. Where I live in the US my life expectancy is in the mid-80s despite the number of young people that die.