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The U.S. spends two to three times more per capita on healthcare than do European countries, yet Americans are less healthy. To examine whether wealth is a factor in this disparity, researchers compared the health and socioeconomic status of 9900 U.S., 6500 British, and 17,000 mainland European adults (age range, 50–74), as recorded on surveys that provided comparable information across countries. To exclude the effect of racial disparities on health outcomes, only non-Latino white U.S. adults were included.
Americans had a higher prevalence of all evaluated health conditions than Britons or mainland Europeans. For example, rates of heart disease and cancer were higher among Americans (18% and 11%, respectively) than among Britons (12% and 6…