It’s a mixed bag, but the funding source doesn’t necessarily make it a controlled market, to the degree that Medicare and Medicaid pay non-government providers and allow competition (which again, is mixed). Medicare and Medicaid coverage make up one third of the US population. The other two thirds are on group/employer insurance, private insurance, or no insurance at all.

For non-seniors, the medical insurance system certainly sometimes doesn’t feel like a free market from the consumer perspective, but the insurance companies are private for-profit institutions, and the medical providers are too, so it may well fit the definition.

> the people for whom life expectancy and healthcare quality have the highest correlation.

What do you mean by this? Fatalities among the young will have a much larger impact on lowering nationwide life expectancy than fatalities among the elderly.

The quote is from a Crikey reporter, I (an Australian) wouldn't agree that the US health system is classic free market .. but it appears to have more regulatory capture by vested commercial non government profit orientated interests than by social policy best outcome for the masses civil authorities.

( Describing various systems in various countries as either communist of free market capitalist is pretty simplistic, it's not much as a linear spectrum either )

I'd also argue that the foundation for a high life expectancy doesn't start with good health care for seniors .. unless the metric is "life support via artificial means" .. life expectancy is grounded in healthy living and excerise from an early age well maintained with good health programs.