Life expectancy not a healthy measuring stick

In a June 23 letter, Robert J. Boes made a connection between America's relatively low life expectancy among rich countries and our lack of universal health care. However, a 2006 book by a pair of University of Iowa College of Public Health Professors showed that when traffic deaths and murders are removed from mortality statistics, American life expectancy ranks at or near the top of OECD

nations.

Health care has a much smaller role in preventing deaths from assaults and traffic accidents than from long-term ailments like cancer or heart disease. This either shows that comparative life expectancy favors the American health care system or demonstrates that life expectancy is not an adequate tool for judging the quality of a health care system.

In fact, America leads the world in a number of direct measures of care quality, including access to cancer screening tests, access to new drugs, access to specialists and fastest access to life-changing surgeries like knee replacement and cataract removal.

Perhaps the savings per patient or equality of care that rationed universal health systems provide makes them desirable to some.

However, life expectancy is not an adequate standard by which to judge either the efficacy or humanity of a health care system.

Alex Metcalf

Iowa City