According to that map you linked on wage disparity, Kazakhstan is one of the world's most egalitarian countries. I think we can agree that any metric that puts *stan better than the US is screwed up. Also, an argument could be made that the US is more of a meritocracy than Europe. That's not necessarily a bad thing.
On life expectancy, I can buy that, but I'm not sure it's policy related (I know your post didn't mention policy, but I was replying to a poster who did). There's a good portion of Americans who happily do things that are well known to kill (smoke, eat fatty foods, etc.). The government here has put a great deal of effort into educating people, and yet they still partake in these behaviors. At that point, it's not really a policy problem anymore.