Why? Because our government has spent the past ~13 years carefully dismantling all the small systems that go into making a country run smoothly.
Courts, justice? Broken. Policing? Broken. Prisons / probation? Broken. Rail? Broken. Schools? Privatised and broken. Energy sector? Profiting nicely, but for shareholders / other countries, broken for us. Water? Same. Healthcare? Very nearly broken, GPs at breaking point, strikes in the hospitals. Mental healthcare, broken and almost non-existent until you're in crisis. Trade? LOL, you guessed it; broken.
You only have to go to pretty much any other European country to see the difference that not having Greggs and Weatherspoons makes. Like, there's still slim good looking middle aged people, they're not all bloated out of breath potatoes.
In the UK, average life expectancy at birth was 81 years, according to 2021 data from the World Bank - the same as in Slovenia, Portugal, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and Austria.
To frame that as "the UK has one of the lowest life expectancies among rich countries" is... misleading, to say the least. Why does Germany have one of the lowest life expectancies among rich countries? Why does Denmark?
Except we US are worse than the UK. We just have choices fried ice cream, fried stick of butter, fried Twinkies.
You can get fresh fruit and veggies but we subsidize our beeft and corn.
Also don't forget your high fructose corn syrup in almost all our sodas. We make sure you get diabetes quick so we can prop up our insulin execs and skimp on social security. Our medical expenses are through the roof but that's from a different bucket.