Thought Police update

You should not say the U.S. has the best health care. You should not even think the U.S. has the best health care. So says Dr. Christopher Murray, head of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington:

“The starting point is the recognition that the U.S. does not have the best health care system. There are still an awful lot of people who think it does.”

But the information he’s basing that statement on, statistics indicating that the U.S. longevity ranking has slipped to 42nd in recent years, offers no proof of that assertion. It comes from this piece of spin at MSNBC which, in typical sloppy popular media style, didn’t bother to cite the primary source. (I did some poking around, and I think it’s here).

Via Dr. Helen.

Clinical Cases and Images weighs in here.