The real problem, from both "sides" of this debate, is that nobody looks at numbers, they look at the interpretations of the numbers to score their points. "Medical errors are the third most common cause of death in the United States" is one way to report these numbers. Another is "imperfect treatment more likely to kill you than COPD." Still a third is "as patients age, opportunity to fuck up their care increases." The last two aren't likely to make headlines. It's like the Oregon birth study: are you going to go with "planned home births drop c-section rate from 25% to 5%?" Maybe "planned home births increase risk of fetal death from one in a thousand to two in a thousand?" Or shall we go with the tried and true "home births twice as deadly as hospital births?" It's funny to me that whatever your persuasion, you demand perfection from your opponent but argue semantics when the data makes you look bad. Compare and contrast: the Dutch decided to integrate both sides and the home birth rate dropped by a third while complications dropped by half. But for some reason, in this country, we just can't go there.