[ahayes]

Umm, actually I watch very little TV. What, did you see a problem with my logic? Do you have a clear explanation for their mushy classifications? Can you propose a plan that would prevent 100% of seriously ill people from dying as these people seem to expect we should be able to? Can you explain why you say it is "not a science or even properly a profession"? Do you read many medical or pharmaceutical journals? What is your profession?

I do agree managed care is a bad idea. :D

[eno_]

I have a background in statistics, specifically applied to qualimetrics - that is, for example, how many items in a production run do you need to examine to determine what the quality of the whole run will be, and all the complications of that.

I'm not suggesting that very sick people don't normally die in significant numbers. I am saying, however, that most people think medicine is as reliable as a Toyota. It isn't. Medical care is to reliability as a chariot is to a Toyota. Certainly some chariots worked flawlessly and were even great works of art, but a lot of wheels fell off and people got trampled by horses.

Medical care is very error prone. It only works well when really intelligent people perform well. And most of the time you either don't have intelligent enough people or they are overworked or something else prevents them from performing optimally.

Unlike the Toyota factory where life revolves around producing as close to a perfect result in every car as possible, medicine is a hodge-podge of excellence and mediocrity, with fringes of outright don't-give-a-damn.