This graph from Gapminder is usually interpreted to show the dependence of health on wealth. It also shows, however, that for a given income level, there are wide disparities in child mortality.
Countries with a higher portion of children dying before age five that other countries with comparable per capita income include the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Turkey, South Africa and Nigeria.
Countries with a lower portion of children dying than economically comparably countries include Japan and the Scandanavian countries, Malaysia, Cuba, Sri Lanka and Viet Nam.
The reasons why countries underperform or overperform in terms of buying improved health must differ from country to country. Still, it would seem that governments with more emphasis on social policy do better. The South African anomaly might suggest that radical inequality within a country leads to poor health indicators.
In any case, it is an indictment of the United States health system and more generally our political and social system that we are willing to continue to have lower health status indicators than other countries, including less wealthy countries.
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