Life expectancy is actually a really great example of the opposite. People routinely claim our health system is bad compared to europe because our average life expectancy is lower.
It turns out african americans skew our metrics because they have
1) high infant mortality
2) high murder rates of young men
The high infant mortality is irrespective of wealth and has a disproportionate impact on average life expectancy because the death of a 0 age person has a huge impact on the average. When you look at the rest of the population, our whites are on par with europe and our asians are on par with asian countries.
One way this is gamed is that some countries have different standards for reporting infant mortality.
<<The infant mortality rate is defined as the number of deaths of children under one year of age, expressed per 1 000 live births. Some of the international variation in infant mortality rates is due to variations among countries in registering practices for premature infants. The United States and Canada are two countries which register a much higher proportion of babies weighing less than 500g, with low odds of survival, resulting in higher reported infant mortality. In Europe, several countries apply a minimum gestational age of 22 weeks (or a birth weight threshold of 500g) for babies to be registered as live births. This indicator is measured in terms of deaths per 1 000 live births.>>
In the US it is gamed in reverse in the sense that the average hides the true problem is with subpopulations and not the entire US medical system as a whole. Our (gamed) poor performance in this statistic is used as a measure to support moving to a substantially different system.
It's not like Europe doesn't have marginalized populations. Your argument is basically "if you exclude the parts of the US population that are worst treated by our healthcare system, then ours is the best!" There is something meaningful in comparing the "median" or "modal" health experience in different countries, but "we treat black people badly compared to white people in the USA so you have to only look at white statistics" is a terrible defense of the system.
Your point about infant mortality statistics being gamed is on point, though (and I pointed it out in a sibling commment).
It turns out african americans skew our metrics because they have
1) high infant mortality 2) high murder rates of young men
The high infant mortality is irrespective of wealth and has a disproportionate impact on average life expectancy because the death of a 0 age person has a huge impact on the average. When you look at the rest of the population, our whites are on par with europe and our asians are on par with asian countries.
One way this is gamed is that some countries have different standards for reporting infant mortality.
<<The infant mortality rate is defined as the number of deaths of children under one year of age, expressed per 1 000 live births. Some of the international variation in infant mortality rates is due to variations among countries in registering practices for premature infants. The United States and Canada are two countries which register a much higher proportion of babies weighing less than 500g, with low odds of survival, resulting in higher reported infant mortality. In Europe, several countries apply a minimum gestational age of 22 weeks (or a birth weight threshold of 500g) for babies to be registered as live births. This indicator is measured in terms of deaths per 1 000 live births.>>
In the US it is gamed in reverse in the sense that the average hides the true problem is with subpopulations and not the entire US medical system as a whole. Our (gamed) poor performance in this statistic is used as a measure to support moving to a substantially different system.