It's not even production because of that assumption. It's "sum of prices paid" basically

I’m talking in the example ” let's pay a company X that will pay the gardeners. It'll cost 95k.”

Where does that 95k come from?

Why do you think that actions of these huge institutions are not impactful to the life quality of the Americans?

Also, why do you think that the European live longer thanks to the medicine developed in the USA? Maybe the USA develops medicine thanks to the free and equal opportunity education culture in the Europe? If you look closely to the researchers, you will see that lot's of the people who develop these things have European roots and by roots I don't mean their grandpa was Irish, I mean they were educated in Europe and it just happens that the organisation that develops these drugs is incorporated in the USA.

The tech revolution that changed the world was also developed in Europe, the web was developed by the British in EU institution, Linux was made by a Finnish guy called Linus, Nginx is Russian-made.

Also, we are at a verge of AI revolution and some of the leading researchers are Europe educated people. Just check the bio of the top researchers who were instrumental at Tesla or OpenAI.

Maybe the USA is just the industrial zone of Europe? Maybe the US appears rich and acts poor simply because because the richness comes from the accounting choices? Just kidding of course, the USA is a superpower and is actually rich thanks to many things like its abundant resources and brilliant people but the notion that the Europe is doing better because they just drink smoothies and meditate all day on the American resources and innovation is ridiculous.

> At the same time, a lot of the increase in life expectancy in the EU is due to improvements in medicine that are significantly driven by US-funded research.

Frankly, I don't believe it's true, for two reasons. First, the European Big Pharma is quite strong. It would be more fair - but not precise - to say the rest of the world benefits from the advances made in the West.

As for the second point, it was succinctly put by Dr. Marcia Angell from The New England Journal of Medicine in her famous book. From the blurb: "Drug companies, she shows, routinely rely on publicly funded institutions for their basic research; they rig clinical trials to make their products look better than they are; and they use their legions of lawyers to stretch out government-granted exclusive marketing rights for years. They also flood the market with copycat drugs that cost a lot more than the drugs they mimic but are no more effective."

If the US is funding the research, what is it about the US political system which prevents Americans from enjoying those same gains?

I suggest that perhaps it’s a difference in perspective on rights. In Europe, there is a positive right to healthcare. In the US, there is no such right apart from certain circumstances. We turn our nose up at “handouts”. The US expects the free market to handle it instead, which it has. This has led to large portions of the country with few doctors and even fewer affordable ones.

Research mostly done by underpaid researchers from China, India and Europe coming to the US in the hope to get a better life. The whole system is complex.

It's probably a very complex thing and both sides of the discussion can pick something to attribute for. For example, you can say that it's because of the opioid crisis in the USA and pretend that it's happening in isolation - just some bad actors doing bad things that don't have anything to do with anything else.

Hong Kong has one of the highest life expectancy of the world and a major contributing factor is high population density. Paramedics are able (and must) arrive within 12 minutes of an emergency call, which is probably the most important time to keep people alive. Doesn't mean Hong Kong is a decent place to live though.

Young people dying of drug overdose.

It has not. Germany is in technical recession, but people are not dying in the streets, have jobs, and can take care of their families. In the US the economy is stellar, yet homelessness is peaking, with people unable to afford housing even if they have a job. Stop calling it “the economy” as if it was a direct translation of the reality of a society. It’s not. Signed: a business journalist.