Healthcare, Obesity, and Wikipedia Data, Oh My!

A former co-worker posted the above video about healthcare on Facebook, which brought up some discussions I have been having with people.  Many people have been saying Canada’s healthcare is lacking, and according to the video above that seems to be the case.  I think we instantly look to Canada’s healthcare because it is the closest socialized medicine nation to what we could compare ourselves with (besides, they are our friendly neighbors to the north).  Any time someone has talked about Canada’s healthcare, I point them to the list of life expectancy by country on Wikipedia.  The US is #50 and Canada is #8 (see below).  Obviously, healthcare can’t be the only contributing factor, but what other factors can you think of?

Rank by entity	Entity	Overall life expectancy at birth
1	Macau ( China)	84.36
2	Andorra	82.51
3	Japan	82.12
4	Singapore	81.98
5	San Marino	81.97
6	Hong Kong ( China)	81.86
7	Australia	81.63
8	Canada	81.23
9	France (metropolitan)	80.98
10	Sweden	80.86
11	Switzerland	80.85
12	Guernsey	80.77
13	Israel	80.73
14	Iceland	80.67
15	Anguilla	80.65
16	Cayman Islands	80.43
17	Bermuda	80.65
18	New Zealand	80.36
19	Italy	80.2
20	Gibraltar	80.19
21	Monaco	80.09
22	Liechtenstein	80.06
23	Spain	80.05
24	Norway	79.95
25	Jersey	79.75
26	Greece	79.66
27	Austria	79.5
28	Faroe Islands	79.44
29	Malta	79.44
30	Netherlands	79.4
31	Luxembourg	79.33
32	Germany	79.26
33	Belgium	79.22
34	Saint Pierre and Miquelon	79.07
35	U.S. Virgin Islands	79.05
36	United Kingdom	79.01
37	Finland	78.97
38	Jordan	78.87
39	Isle of Man	78.82
40	South Korea	78.72
41	European Union	78.67
42	Puerto Rico ( US)	78.53
43	Bosnia and Herzegovina	78.5
44	Saint Helena	78.44
45	Cyprus	78.33
46	Denmark	78.3
47	Ireland	78.24
48	Portugal	78.21
49	Wallis and Futuna	78.2
50	United States	78.11

She (my former co-worker) pointed to health statistics on BMI which was smart, I never would have thought to do that.  As you will see below, America is an overweight nation.  The US is #1 and Canada is #11, but I don’t think there is too much of a correlation to show that correlation equals causation (my sociology professor would be so proud) here, which is exactly my point.  If our healthcare is so great, and our BMI levels not that far off from other nations with much better life expectancy, why are we #50?

I’m sending this to a Canadian counterpart to get his take on healthcare as well.  I mean, after all, “Canadians strongly support the health system’s public rather than for-profit private basis, and a 2009 poll by Nanos Research found 86.2% of Canadians surveyed supported or strongly supported “public solutions to make our public health care stronger.”^[4][5]

A 2009 Harris/Decima poll found 82% of Canadians preferred their healthcare system to the one in the United States, more than ten times as many as the 8% stating a preference for a US-style health care system for Canada^[6] while a Strategic Counsel survey in 2008 found 91% of Canadians preferring their healthcare system to that of the U.S.^[7][8]. In the same poll, when asked “overall the Canadian health care system was performing very well, fairly well, not very well or not at all?” 70% of Canadians rated their system as working either “well” or “very well” ^[9] A 2003 Gallup poll found only 25% of Americans are either “very” or “somewhat” satisfied with “the availability of affordable healthcare in the nation,” versus 50% of those in the UK and 57% of Canadians. Those “very dissatisfied” made up 44% of Americans, 25% of respondents of Britons, and 17% of Canadians^[10]

In November 2004, Canadians voted Tommy Douglas, Canada’s ‘father of Medicare'”) the Greatest Canadian of all time following a nationwide contest.^[11][12]

I want to open the conversation up to you.  What other data can we look at to show why the US would have a lower life expectancy than our neighbors to the north if not obesity, or healthcare?  If you send data, please site your sources for everyone to benefit from.  Thank you!