Quotation of the Day…

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… is from page 93 of the 2009 Revised Edition of Thomas Sowell’s Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One:

The implicit assumption that mortality rates reflect the amount or quality of medical care is seldom subjected to any empirical test in media or political discussions comparing American medical care with medical care in other countries with more comprehensive government involvement in medical care. But the relevant comparison would be between mortality rates in different countries from health problems in which medical care makes a substantial difference, even if not the only difference. This would still not be a perfect comparison, since even here other differences between the populations in the countries being compared are factors as well. But it would be a much more relevant comparison than those that are usually made by the media and politicians. When the American College of Physicians calculated the death rate for “mortality amenable to health care” the United States was in the top three countries with low death rates of this sort out of 19 countries studied.