The GOP, its Assault on Trial Lawyers, and the News That So Many Die from Hospital Errors

Chris in Paris at AmericaBlog raises this:

Now what was it that Cheney was saying just days ago? Oh yes, it was this:

"This problem doesn't start in the waiting room," Cheney said in remarks released by the campaign. "It doesn't start in the operating room. The problem starts in the courtroom."

Sounds like Dick might not have been exactly right about that one, sort of like the WMDs.

"The HealthGrades study shows that the IOM report may have underestimated the number of deaths due to medical errors, and, moreover, that there is little evidence that patient safety has improved in the last five years," said Dr. Samantha Collier, vice president of medical affairs at the company.

It said it found about 1.14 million "patient-safety incidents" occurred among the 37 million hospitalizations. "Of the total 323,993 deaths among Medicare patients in those years who developed one or more patient-safety incidents, 263,864, or 81 percent, of these deaths were directly attributable to the incidents," it added. "One in every four Medicare patients who were hospitalized from 2000 to 2002 and experienced a patient-safety incident died."