Why is life expectancy in the US lower than in other rich countries?

>Compare wealth and life expectancy of any ethnicity living in USA with the population living in their previous habitat, and the US population comes out on top.

>Japanese Americans for example have higher life expectancy than Japanese in Japan, and I expect the same would be true for Ethiopians.

Similarly, Americans do well on PISA compared to their ethnic relatives. (https://www.unz.com/isteve/the-new-2018-pisa-school-test-sco...) Asian Americans do better than Asians; whites do better than Europeans; Latinos do better than Latin Americans; and blacks do better than Africans.

Hispanics and especially blacks' scores drag the US average down. Both white and Asian Americans score higher than Canada (and white+Asian is essentially Canada's racial makeup), and higher than New Zealand, Australia, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France, Norway, and the UK; Estonia is below US Asians but above white Americans. Norway is by far the wealthiest Nordic state but its average is only two points higher than the US national average, despite not having a demographic that is 13% of the population and scores 85 points below the white American average.

>The % of US population covered by health insurance is around 84%

That was pre-Obamacare. 91-92% of Americans have medical insurance, whether through their employers, or government programs like Medicare/Medicaid.

>compared with most other rich countries, which are all at 100%.

Nope. That's compared to 95-97% in other developed countries because there are always some people who fall through cracks, like (say) a Canadian who doesn't get a new provincial health care card after moving, or a German who neglects to buy into a new sickness fund after changing careers. The only such systems with actual 100% (or as close to it as possible) coverage is something like the UK NHS, which does not have a requirement to show a membership card (because, well, there isn't one) to receive treatment.

Even if this is a fundamental part of the explanation, there are features of US culture and geography at work. Most of the rest of the wealthy countries have smaller geographies and denser population centers, and a corresponding lower rate of car travel. With our huge suburban sprawl, many youngs find their entry into adulthood coupling excessive commute responsibility for entry level jobs with the new freedom and responsibility of a vehicle. (I grew up in the DC suburbs, this was my life.)

Or maybe not having a kid is why you’re still alive.

As far as I recollect discussing this before one will actually save younger children in most of Nordic countries e.g. than in the US, and infant mortality rate is still much lower.

There are several reasons the US rate is so much higher than in other developed countries. The US does not have universal health care, which means large sections of the US population does not get adequate follow up during pregnancy.

If you look at health care for the poor in the US, it is generally geared towards emergency care. They will stitch you up if you are about to die. However it generally does not cover regular doctor visits and checkups. Hence in the US a lot of expensive effort goes into saving babies when born, when the problem could far more easily have been resolved early in the pregnancy with better checkups.

The US system is simply not very geared towards simple preventative care. Where other health care systems tend to focus on simple cheap system. American health care is overly focused on advance equipment, complicated procedures and basically anything which gives a lot of prestige or profits.

Problem is that such a health care system does not perform very well in the real world. You end up with very high costs and poor results.

E.g. a lot of health problems in the US is actually caused by over-treatment. That is the irony of the US system. Poor people who need help don't get it. People with expensive health care plans OTOH are subject to invasive procedures they don't need because it brings in profit. E.g. the US has overuse of surgery. So basically people who don't need surgery are cut open in the US. And that does take a toll on your health.

The opioid crisis killing Americans is a variation of this. Basically it is overmedication for the sake of profits. The health care system is actually a contributor to the bad health problems in the US.

It really should lead people to question for-profit health care, but it seems impossible to question anything about capitalism in the US. You speak to deaf ears.