> any time a problem of this magnitude hasn't been solved AND you think the answer is 'blindingly obvious', consider that you don't fully grok the problem.
That is a good point - this thread has turned out to be more complex than I expected, and had I been a bit more open-minded I would have avoided the phrase 'blindingly obvious'.
Still, I'm not yet convinced this is an intractable problem. The New York Times articles says that patients are 3 times more likely to die at one hospital than another, even after controlling for patient sickness, income and age. This may be due to (a) a confounding variable; (b) a real difference between the quality of care provided by the hospitals. How much weight should we place on each possibility? Is it 50/50, or 60/40, or 10/90?
If you have to have a medical procedure and were told the survival rate of Hospital A is 98% and at Hospital B is 94% would you say, "there are so many possible confounding variables, this statistic will have no bearing on my choice of hospital"?
That is a good point - this thread has turned out to be more complex than I expected, and had I been a bit more open-minded I would have avoided the phrase 'blindingly obvious'.
Still, I'm not yet convinced this is an intractable problem. The New York Times articles says that patients are 3 times more likely to die at one hospital than another, even after controlling for patient sickness, income and age. This may be due to (a) a confounding variable; (b) a real difference between the quality of care provided by the hospitals. How much weight should we place on each possibility? Is it 50/50, or 60/40, or 10/90?
If you have to have a medical procedure and were told the survival rate of Hospital A is 98% and at Hospital B is 94% would you say, "there are so many possible confounding variables, this statistic will have no bearing on my choice of hospital"?