Generally if you are well off, the US is a fine place to be. If you are addicted or poor, it's not so great.
In most of Europe, it's easy to get into rehab even if you're destitute. We have drug workers out on the streets providing advice, clean needles and referrals to other healthcare services. Homeless addicts still have access to exactly the same services as anyone else. The death toll from addiction falls remarkably quickly if there's a concerted effort to abate it.
We also avoided the opiate epidemic that is currently blighting the US - pill mills simply don't exist when there's no profit motive to dole out opiates like tic-tacs.
Setting aside the obvious humanitarian issues, failing to address the healthcare needs of the very poorest is costing the American taxpayer dearly. The economic benefits of preventative medicine and social care were described better than I could in Gladwell's essay "Million Dollar Murray".
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/02/13/million-dollar-...
I think this is the real benefit of socialised health care. Your wealth will survive a health problem. You will not lose your house because you got cancer.
Health insurance works when it works (I have some), but when they decide they're not going to pay your bills, for whatever reason, and you have to pay the bills to keep the doctors working until you can take the insurer to court, then it's a nightmare. Socialised health care avoids this.
Really? Maybe a long duration but highly curable health problems. What happens to the blind or someone who loses both arms? Do they really have more wealth than their counterparts in the US?
From http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.STA.MMRT?view=map
* 0.014% of dying during a pregnancy in the US
* 0.008% of dying during a pregnancy in France
It'd be interesting to see the numbers after accounting for obesity.
Analysis of the mid-Victorian period in the U.K. reveals that life expectancy at age 5 was as good or better than exists today https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2672390/ Digging into it you find women have a shorter life expectancy and men had a longer one.
PS: Using birth or at age 70 modern England has longer lifespans.
