I don't see how the fact that it's not a normal distribution causes the mean not to be known with significant accuracy given such a large sample size.

If you wanted to argue that healthcare is such a small factor in determining life expectancy compared to other things, then I wouldn't be attacking your position. But your argument was basically "the standard deviation in both populations is large, therefore the fact that their means are close together means that the difference between the means isn't significant," which is fallacious reasoning.

Look at, for example, poker players. There is a significant difference between a player who is breakeven over 1 million hands and a player who wins 2BB/100 hands over 1 million hands, but the standard deviation for both players in BB/100 is going to be relatively huge (could easily be 20+)

PJA, so you don't understand the difference between the population variance and the standard deviation of the sample mean. Today's college education is in a sorry state.
Look again. One s.d. for the babies born in 2007 is 60 to 90 years for life expectancy. Two populations: country A- life expectancy is one year longer than those from country B. Using 15 years as s.d. A person for country A is only a 52.5/47.5 favorite to live longer. Other subgroups will be a much greater factor in determining life expectancy, like being the proper weight.

Look at the January jobs report. 8.3% unemployment. Hope you don't believe that number. All stats from this and any other govt is suspect.

No, I understand this entirely. You're the one that said:

I inferred that you are saying that the difference of one year in average life expectancy is "just a rounding error", and that you were basing this on the fact that "Individual lifespans is not a tight cluster." This is the exact fallacy you just tried to tell me I'm the one not understanding.

How are you going to start telling me that I don't understand the difference? Come on now...

Jogs, anyone that uses their family as proof in a statistics argument clearly doesn't know much about statistics. So maybe you should be careful how you're throwing stones.

Or to win elections because voters think you do something that you don't do.

FYI this is a problem with private sector pensions as well. For the last 30 years or so direct deposit has resulted in pension plans paying a lot of money to dead people because direct deposits into a joint account don't stop unless the death is reported by the spouse or another family member, who have no incentive to report it.

Social security was still sending checks to some families who reported the deaths.

Found 75 seconds of Ron Paul on tort reform. Rep. Paul shows up around the three minute mark.

Paul against the sort of tort reform proposals that many other
members of his party support.
He is against a national tort reform bill. Says it should be done
at the state level. He also is against trial lawyers.

Less regulations + tort reform == the worst possible solution. Nothing worse than having your life in the hands of people without proper regulation AND an inability to hold them legally responsible for full damages when they screw up. Paul again seems to be the only (R) that understands this.

It really blows that this happens but I think staying out of federal prison is a pretty strong incentive to report it. Has the law been changed to mandate this? (Sorry if answered already, I'm grunching)

I've yet to come across a definition of tort reform that doesn't basically amount to "protecting companies from being held to account by juries."

Are we arguing semantics? Within the United States there are subgroups which have a life expectancy 30 years longer than other subgroups. I stand by my statement that a one year difference from being born in one nation over another nation is insignificant.

Drill into this a bit. What two subgroups have a life expectancy difference of 30 years? Now compare those. Can you not draw the conclusion that one is healthier than the other?

I prefer government run over dealing with for-profit insurance companies.

That's the whole point of life expectancy. The higher the value, the higher the medical care poor people recieve. It's ****ing obvious to even the dumbest that rich people are always going to recieve the best care no matter where they live. India has what, a 66 LE? That's only a 14f years away from italy, and I'm sure the difference between LE of poor and rich is probably somewhere around 40-50 years, so 14 years is nothing. Where would you want to live as a poor person tho?

It's the poor people with bad health care that bring the number down. And we haven't even started talking about poor people with bad med care and high crime rates.

In general it is a huge disadvantage to be poor. Here's a surprising study.

ok i have what is probably a stupid question. but couldnt our lower life expectancy be attributed to the fact the us is a more dangerous place?
more natural disasters hurricanes tornados earthquakes and so on than other countries.
more violent crime (just a guess)
more ppl driving per capita more accidents
so on and so on.

The US is one of the least dangerous places in the world, in almost every possible way.

Most of those things are so rare that they don't have much of an impact. The only thing common enough would be accidents, which are the #5 cause of death in the US. How many accidents we have compared to other countries though, I'm not sure. That is a good question.

For reference, here's what is killing us (2009 stats from the CDC):

Heart disease: 599,413
Cancer: 567,628
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 137,353
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 128,842
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 118,021
Alzheimer's disease: 79,003
Diabetes: 68,705
Influenza and Pneumonia: 53,692
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 48,935
Intentional self-harm (suicide): 36,909

Texas 27% uninsured
Massachusetts 4% uninsured
California 21% uninsured

Life Expectancy

Texas 78.3
Massachusetts 80.1
California 80.4 3rd highest behind MN and HI

your point is?

Don't think anyone knows for sure. I think your examples have lowered life expectancy very little.
400,000 years of evolution of man walking and running. 60 or 70 years of man being sedentary. Convinced this is the main reason Americans have a lower life expectancy than other industrialized nations. They(other nationals) use public transportation more often. On many train stations it is a quarter mile or more from the entrance of the station to the trains. It takes hundreds if not thousands of generations for a species to evolve. Man is programmed to move.

More unintended consequences of national healthcare.
Obamacare Vs. The Catholics

catholics should know you get in bed with the antichrist you are going to get burned. im sry couldnt resist.

Seems like everyone just needs to eat healthier and lay off drugs...not that surprising

wait what, people get paid back when they use a condom? Mother****ers, I always gotta buy my own...