Poor health care is responsible for a slower rise in longevity for people in the United States than those in Canada and 11 other developed countries with universal coverage, U.S. researchers said Thursday.

The study by a team at New York's Columbia University formed the conclusion after ruling out other commonly cited culprits, such as obesity, smoking, traffic accidents and a U.S. murder rate that is among the highest in the developed world.

"The U.S. doesn't stand out as doing any worse in these areas than any of the other countries we studied, leading us to believe that failings in the U.S. health-care system, such as costly specialized and fragmented care, are likely playing a large role in (a) relatively poor performance on improvements in life expectancy," said study co-author Peter Muennig, who's also a health-policy expert.

The study — published in the journal, Health Affairs — comes as Democrats and Republicans, campaigning ahead of congressional elections next month, are arguing over the impact of health-care reforms spearheaded by U.S. President Barack Obama.

Democrats say they will provide more people with access to affordable health care. Many Republicans have pledged to repeal the reforms, claiming they will lead to a deterioration of a system that they argue provides the best health care in the world.

The researchers compared U.S. health-care spending and mortality statistics with those of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland.

The study found that life expectancy and health-care costs from 1975 to 2005 rose in all the countries, but costs climbed faster in the United States, while longevity rose more slowly.

More broadly, the researchers reported that the United States was fifth among the leading industrialized countries in 1950 with respect to life expectancy at birth for women. But figures as recent as last month show the United States ranked 49th for male and female life expectancy combined.

Many defenders of the private, insurance-centred U.S. health-care system blame lifestyle factors for the discrepancy.

But the study found that the prevalence of obesity has grown more slowly than in other nations, while the number of smokers has declined more rapidly.

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