Why does health insurance in Europe cost so much less than in the US, even though they have universal coverage?

European healthcare is higher quality and europeans have longer lifespans and get less sick then Americans. Europeans also have much better education levels, score way higher on tests and much happier, more developed lives. Why are republicans so against that?
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Excellent question. For those who doubt, here's the data to back it up. For example, Canada, the country most similar to the US, enjoys 2.3 years longer life expectancy and pays about $3400 less per capita (numbers from 2007). And they have universal coverage. In the table below, im = infant mortality and L = life expectancy. See http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004393.h… for mortality and life; see http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/46/33/38979… for costs. United States -- im= 6.4, L= 78.0, cost $7290, 16.0% of GDP Canada --------- im= 4.6, L= 80.3, cost $3895, 10.1% of GDP Austria -------- im= 4.5, L= 79.2, cost $3763, 10.1% of GDP United Kingdom -- im= 5.0, L= 78.7, cost $3895, 8.4% of GDP Denmark ------ im= 4.5, L= 78.0, cost $3362, 10.4% of GDP Finland ------- im= 3.5, L= 78.7, cost $2840, 8.2% of GDP France -------- im= 4.2, L= 79.9, cost $4763, 11.0% of GDP Germany ------ im= 4.1, L= 79.0, cost $3527, 10.4% of GDP Greece -------- im= 5.3, L= 79.4, cost $2727, 9.6% of GDP Italy ----------- im= 5.7, L= 79.9, cost $2686, 8.7% of GDP Norway ------- im= 3.6, L= 79.7, cost $4763, 8.9% of GDP Spain --------- im= 4.3, L= 79.8, cost $2671, 8.5% of GDP Sweden ------- im= 2.8, L= 80.6, cost $3323, 9.1% of GDP Switzerland --- im= 4.3, L= 80.6, cost $4417, 10.8% of GDP USA has 36 days longer life expectancy than these two countries! Ireland ------- im= 5.2, L= 77.9, cost $3424, 7.6% of GDP Portugal ----- im= 4.9, L= 77.9, cost $2150, 9.9% of GDP Some folks blame our high costs on malpractice insurance. But the numbers don't support that. Including legal fees, insurance costs, and payouts, the cost of the suits comes to less than 1.5 percent of health-care spending. See http://www.insurance-reform.org/pr/AIRhe… and http://makethemaccountable.com/myth/Risi… Along those lines, it's interesting to note that a number of states already have "caps and tort reform" yet the insurance companies have not lowered the cost of malpractice insurance in those states. Finally, most malpractice cases occur in state court where the Federal government has no juristiction. See http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/th… .
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