heheheh. Concidering i dont think anyone on the right even READS my posts im going to go off topic a bit here
You know maybe concervitisium is a religion or a faith because it never seems to stand up to empirical evidence and unlike a science when empirical evidence shows a scientific theory to be incorect then it is modifided to acount for the new evidence. There is amble data to show that the conservitive view point is wrong yet i have never seen it modifided or abandoned collectivally. Concidering this is a science site people HERE (especially those like Mad who proffess to be from a science based background) should be more willing to put there theories to the test. Instead we have the duck and weave routine as shown by read only's comment "The data from other countries is irrelivent because we are talking about the US". To a certain point he is correct, scientific studies can be subject to cultural bias which is why you must always be critical before automatically apliying it directly to a different culture. For instance the study in the US which found "getto ambulances" (ie the gansters droping off gun shot victoms at A&E doors with no treatment at all) have better health outcomes than EMTs. This was pointed out to me by a friend in St John to which my responce was "yes but before you aplie that to Australia you have to concider the fact that US EMTs arnt trained to anywhere near the same standed as Australian Paramedics, further more EMT is a min wage job which means that the EMTs are probably working at least one extra job on top of being an EMT which increases fatigue and there for lowers efficancy".
However (to get back on topic) as Cochrane shows, the wider the cultural groups you take your evidence from the more it becomes directly universally aplicable. OECD statistics arnt from one country, they arnt the US v canada or the US v UK alone, they take data from ALL there member countries and its consistantly shown that the US ranks close to (or at) the bottom time and again. It cant be avoided by simply saying "oh but the US is a large spread out country" well you cant get much further from metro health care than the center of Australia (actually thats a lie, Alice springs actually has quite a good public hospital, its the areas further out from the actual center which have distance problems), or whatever other excuses the right likes to come up with
Lastly a side note: It always slightly annoys me when the right uses that word, conservitive in politics should really be equivilant to death because "concervitive" simply means "no change". The right is just as quick to push for change as the left is (as they should, any polly who simply wants things to stand as they are with NO change might as well be dead politically)
Your empirical evidence does not take into account the response and overall effectiveness of the health care administered, thats also a criteria that belongs in your list.
I can only guess that little fact was missing from your list because the US is #1?:shrug:
IMO, it really trumps all those statistics by focusing on healthcare quality and not how fairly it is distributed. Adding any social-economical criteria to rate health care quality and you imediately dilute the absolute results, which should be, the response and effectiveness of treatment for the sick and diseased.