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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (16547)	4/9/2010 6:18:32 PM
From: Lane3	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

" 200K deaths by mistake which make the 4-5 highest cause of death in this country is a horrific number and taken alone would deny us the title of best healthcare system in the world..." In order to "deny us the title" on the basis of deaths by mistake you would have to provide evidence that our 200K deaths exceed those of our competitors. 200K is meaningless in that context unless you have numbers for the competitors. At 200K we could very well be best. Or worst.

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (16547)	4/9/2010 6:20:39 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

Thank you for confirming my point. This is what I said: " 200K deaths by mistake which make the 4-5 highest cause of death in this country is a horrific number and taken alone would deny us the title of best healthcare system in the world..." "Would deny us the title of best healthcare system in the world" is a comparative point. We could in theory be truly awful and still be the best in the world. To "deny us the title" you have to show not just that we have a problem in an area, but that we are worse than other countries (and not just in that area). that number is unacceptable for this modern country That's a fairly reasonable statement, but it doesn't support your other one. You can be the best and still have unacceptable performance, just as you can be the worst and have acceptable performance. Your mixing up comparative and absolute statements and measures as if they where the same thing but they are not. You keep coming back to "its unacceptable". Fine I won't fight that point, its unacceptable, but that doesn't mean we aren't the best (or that we are) by this measure, or more broadly.