We're all arguing about little details now... I don't think anybody here really believes that American or Australian doctors are significantly better than one another. Everybody in the world knows that the American private healthcare system poses obvious problems, and that probably accounts for much more of the discrepancy in life expectancy than does the competency of doctors.
As far as the MGH/Brigham comment - those are Harvard hospitals. If you go there, you'll interact with the best of the best and you'll get a distorted perspective. If you go to a crappy hospital in inner-city New Orleans or in Sedalia, Missouri (been to one of those, I can testify firsthand), you'll get a distorted perspective on the other end. The point is that there are a lot of extremes in the US... Australian hospitals may not be as great as MGH, but they're also not as crappy as Bothwell Hospital in Sedalia. We can't just depend on our own personal experience, because our personal experience will usually be distorted... instead, you should rely on the large studies that consider the experience of thousands of other people; then, the positives average out with the negatives.
The point is not that any one country is better than any other one. The point is that there are many different ways to produce a good doctor... the American way is slightly different from the Australian way, but neither one or the other is "wrong." One is probably better than the other, but that's impossible to measure.
Now to address Janikey, which is always fun:
So now all of a sudden you are pro America??
I've always been pro-America, but that doesn't change the facts. Unlike you, I don't distort the facts depending on whether or not I'm pro-something. If the facts support America, then the facts support America. I like America, but this forum is about Australia.
I have been to Europe, borders have disappeared.
It's not about political borders, it's about de facto cultural borders. If somebody moves from Kansas City to Chicago, it's not that unusual... but if somebody moves from Paris to Berlin (similar distance), it's huge. The point isn't about whether or not Europe has borders... the point is that you can't compare it to the US.
The Eurozone economies collectivelly account for 11.6 Trillion US. The overall EU is about 15.2 Trillion or more.
Again, this shows that you don't understand statistics and/or economics. Your numbers aren't adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), which is an adjustment that you have to make when you're comparing one country to another. Normally, life expectancy is strongly correlated with a country's per-capita GDP(PPP)... but the US is below the curve. They have a much higher GDP(PPP) than any other large nation, but most other developed countries have a higher life expectancy.
Europe fyi has amazing infrastructure. Drive on a German autobahn, go to a European airport, take a train, far more modern than semi-third world Australia.
Europe has better airports/trains because people travel through Europe a lot. Nobody travels through Australia, so there's no point having a better airport. Same with roads and trains... when the population is dense, they have a use for something like the autobahn. In Australia, the autobahn would be a waste of money.
As far as the "third-world" comment... you obviously don't know what third-world means. During the Cold War, American allies were called the "First World", Soviet allies were the "Second World", and everybody else was the "Third World." I was born in Pakistan... once you see the poverty there, you don't really notice the differences between different developed countries. Sure, the US may have more pretty buildings than Australia does, but there's much more to "development" than architecture.
If we look at things through our own personal experience, we'll get distorted perspectives based on our own preferences. If you like to see pretty buildings, you'll prefer the US. If you'd rather see cities with fewer bums on the streets and longer life expectancies, you'll prefer Australia. Instead of looking at Janikey's personal preferences, consider the UN's impartial data, which ranks Australia as #4 in the "Human Development Index", while the US is #15:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index
Why, you ask? The primary reason is because Australians live longer - that's the most basic thing that people strive for. What's the point of having nice buildings if your people aren't living as long? Even the US Declaration of Independence asserts Americans' right to "Life" before even their right to "liberty and the pursuit of happiness"... so how can you possibly say that Australia is a "semi-third world country" when its people live longer than Americans? In real third-world countries, people have to worry about whether they'll be able to live a full life - obviously, Australia is doing well in that regard.
Don't listen to me, don't listen to Janikey, listen to the data.
Now, I'm not saying that America sucks... part of the reason why we (Americans) have a shorter life expectancy because the descendants of pre-Civil War slaves have been repressed and it's very difficult for them to get out of their impoverished state. The point is that it's ridiculous to say that Australia lags behind just because they don't have nice-looking trains. The train system in Sydney is much better than the one in Los Angeles... does that mean that Los Angeles is a third-world city? You've obviously never seen real poverty in your life.
I went to Athens a few years ago, one of the poorest EU countries, and their airport and transportation network far outclasses Sydney.
Athens is a big tourist city, of course they have a nice airport. Also, lots of people travel through Athens to get to their final destination... it would be stupid for anybody to travel through Sydney. You can pick and choose your favorite aspects of every country and make Australia sound like a crappy place... sure, Athens might have a nicer airport and a nicer transportation network, but I'm sure there are plenty of trade-offs like there are everywhere (I've never lived there, so I don't know what they are).
The bottom line(s) is(are) this(these)... we argue about little details, but in terms of daily life, the biggest difference between America and Australia is the accent. I notice plenty of differences between Sydney culture and St. Louis culture, and I like Sydney much better... but some people may prefer St. Louis (or some other American city). I think we can all agree that most of you won't really notice a big difference between the two. If you don't have the option of staying in North America, then Australia is a much better daily-life alternative than the places where some other people go for education.
