It is amazingly important to note that when cross comparing different countries different cultures, social norms, and demographics are at play. When people say Europeans have a better health care system and then point to overall life expectancy, it is worthwhile to put them on the defensive and tell them if you control for deaths that have little to do with Health Care, then the US comes out on top. From a letter to the editor published on CafeHayek:

In their book “The Business of Health,” Robert Ohsfeldt and John Schneider explain that the U.S. homicide rate of 7.3 per 100,000 population is eight times the rate in France. The U.S. death rate from transportation accidents is also higher than in other countries. When life expectancy data are adjusted for differences in homicide and transportation death rates, U.S. life expectancy is slightly higher than for all other countries.

Of course, critics will try to claim that better health care might lower those deaths somewhat; the point is that those disparities exist and vastly distort the data. Also of note, the US has a less heterogeneous population, lower population density, and a large immigrant population. All of these result in the statistics showing the US as more impoverished, crime riddled, and lower educated than really is the case.