Follow-up to "This is what we're fighting to save?"

Yesterday I posted a figure from a recent study showing health care spending per-capita and life expectancy for various countries. I went to the original source (and found their figure underwhelming, hence I used the AP news article version yesterday) and want to follow up.

The main idea is that the US spends far more per-capita on health care than any other country in the world... perhaps 60% more... yet "enjoys" a life expectancy (a general metric of health of its population) several years less than many other developed (or even developing) countries. This disparity was what caught my eye, but the real catch is that EVERY other country in the figure, with the exception of Mexico at the far left and USA at the right, has government-managed health care. Every one.

So the question seems to be this: do we keep the current system, where we spend relatively tremendous amounts of capital that produce --- well, not sure what exactly they produce --- the metric in the study implies the "return on investment" is marginal at best when measured by life expectancy ... or do we try to fix the system.

Those who don't want government intervention: what free-market system do you think might help to lower relative spending and increase life expectancy?