With a historic health care bill being debated today (3/21/2010) as I write this I wanted to mention a few things about where the United States stands in terms of health care. Facts in this article are mostly from: http://www.americashealthrankings.org/.

The US currently spends more per person than any other country. Yet we rank about 30th among other countries in the world when measured on life expectancy from birth. US life expectancy is about 70 years while the #1 nation, Japan, is 76. It looks like the most important factor is the infant mortality rate which is about 6/1000 in the US vs. 3 or less for most of the higher ranking countries. Old age infections and poor child well being (when compared to other rich countries) also are important factors which can be inexpensively remedied.

There is a large gap between healthy and unhealthy states. The healthiest states are Hawaii, Utah and 3 New England states: Vermont (#1), Massachusetts and New Hampshire. The sickest are mostly southern states: South Carolina, Louisiana, Alabama, Oklahoma and Mississippi. The biggest two factors are rate of smoking and rate of obesity which are 22% and 33% respectively in the worst state Mississippi.

The state rankings have no correlation to spending with Hawaii providing the most at $220/person and New Hampshire the least at $59/person and Utah close behind at $60 both less than any of the 5 unhealthiest states.

In addition to smoking and obesity there is a strong correlation to number of people with insurance. We hope a health care bill moves forward today. Making health care available to 30 million additional Americans should go a long way to improving health care in America. We don't have answers to questions about costs but if 30 other countries can top the US in life expectancy for less cost there must be some answers out there.