Americans Die Younger Than Europeans. They Don't Need To.

If you wanted to pick a single metric to judge the success of a country, one measure that both conservatives and liberals could agree on, life expectancy may be your best bet. On that metric, the U.S., which spends more on health care than any other developed country, is doing terribly.

A new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows just how badly. Between 1990 and 2010, the U.S. fell from 20th to 27th place on life expectancy among the 34 countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. U.S. life expectancy at birth rose by only 3 years, to 78, while other countries saw greater increases.