Letters

Death and Enlightenment

Charles Fain Lehman (“Living Dangerously,” May 15) addresses the declining life expectancy of Americans insofar as it contrasts poorly with the life expectancies of “our more enlightened European peers.” He also should have examined America’s tragic lag in other measures of health-care performance, such as infant and/or maternal mortality. He further neglects to point out that America’s poor performance is achieved at generally twice the per capita cost of America’s “enlightened peers.”