Looking at some of the reasons why this may be so:

All this led researchers in the American Journal of Public Health to conclude: “The usefulness of crude infant mortality rates in international comparisons is questionable because of differences in the registration of births and deaths.”

The claim that the U.S. fares far worse than other countries on life expectancy suffers a similar problem because it fails to take into account the multitude of factors other than health care that affect life expectancy.

The simple fact is the U.S. suffers from lots of problems “” more drug abuse, more murders, more traffic fatalities “” that cut into overall life expectancy. The murder rate, for example, is seven times higher in the U.S. than in Japan.

Of course, it’s true that some portion of our health care dollars is wasted, and that we spend too much on paperwork. But the fixes to these do not involve more government involvement in health care, as Sens. Kennedy and Clinton would have it.