I still see a lot of people trotting out life expectancies statistics as a proxy for how inferior U.S. health care is compared to other countries with a larger government role. I don't find such comparisons terribly useful owing to different demographics and behavior patterns. As an example let's compare Norway with North Dakota, the U.S. state with the greatest percentage of Norwegian-Americans:
Life expectancy in Norway: 79.78 yearsLife expectancy in North Dakota: 79.8
A difference of .02 years -- in favor of North Dakota. Would Norway then be well advised to model its health care system after this U.S. state?
