Over these waning days of Summer and heading into Autumn the press has been beside itself- what with all of the Town Hall Meetings, talk radio "viciousness," Ted Kennedy's demise and so on, not to mention the report that the budget deficit promises to be in the Nine Trillion range next year—causing a flurry of stories addressing this issue and many others connected to the Current Administration.

The questions being asked by the Media in this MIASMA of often conflicting information seem to commonly revert to what appears to be "Liberal talking points.”

One has to wonder if what the press accused the Bush Administration of doing is actually being done unabashedly by this White House in sending out to the "Axis Networks” specific agenda items which need to be focused on and massaged into "Holographic Being.”

Over this entire period and with regard to the Healthscare debate- the Statists' constant overall agenda seems to be continually focusing on convincing "We the People" that our medical care (i.e. doctors and hospitals and the like) is not as good as the world seems to think that it is. We have read story after story trying to convince us in editorial form and otherwise that We do not have it as good as We think we do when it comes to quality. One can only thank the Star-Spangled Press for delivering this "excellent" if not subjective "news" whilst We are all currently dealing with an America which has had nothing but bad news followed by worse over the last 12 months. An individual need not look far when trying to comprehend what is going on.

Chiefly, the story which had been designed to sink us further into suicidal depression revolved around a United Nations report that The United States ranks 35th in the world when it comes to our actual health care quality, using their own equally applied rating system. Accompanying this revelation is the conflicting news that the average American’s Life Expectancy has now been increased to 78 Years old. Interestingly, in looking at population samples with regard to this report, some very compelling facts come to mind. When Average Life Expectancy is ranked by population size, which seems to make a lot more of an "actuarial sense" on a host of illustrative fronts, the following facts come into focus:

Comparison in Healthcare Quality of the Top (5) Most Populated Countries

Comparison Inserts:

**Date sources: Cia Factbook 2009; 2009 United Nations Healthcare Census

As one can see, The United States ranks Head and Shoulders above any comparatively ranked population size with regard to healthcare quality. This data was quite surprising when the urge came over us to look at Health care Quality from an actuarial sense. It would appear that in all of this Data one fact becomes apparent. The larger the population size is- within a given country - the more the "Law of Decreasing Returns" applies.

There were several other fascinating things that came both to mind and into stark analysis when reviewing this data. The most amusing was the fact that the European Union, which seems to me to be the "Ideal Model" for our Social Media's self-esteem problems, scores below the United States in overall rankings, although their population is higher. This appears to score an overall point in the analysis' favor when looking at my argument "holistically."  The other point which "glares" to this individual is the relatively small population slice of the United Kingdom in comparison to these other countries when noting the almost negligible increase in Life Expectancy over the United States. We all have heard of the problems with their system, but it only serves a population of 51 million. The US is (6) times larger than Great Britain for Heaven's sake. Canada's population is even less at roughly 33 million but they have no problems---right?

It is indeed amazing how the press will throw out numbers, and we all must then "bow down" without applying any logical principles to the data we are being given. There are some whom might argue that the Healthcare comparison to the Top five Countries is unfair due to the fact that, Industrially speaking ,the US is far ahead of it's Population counterparts. To these people We would rebut that this simply speaks to the exceptionalism of America and it's "Capitalist System."

I hope that at least some few will look at this analysis and come away with the knowledge that simple data is not enough. The data needs to be couched in a commonsensical progression in order to be able to actually see what is happening. I will leave it to the Pros or the Pundits to argue the merit of all of this,however, this particular data seems to be in absence within the continuing debate.

"Trust but verify" seems not to be enough these days, does it?

Barry Secrest

*The topics discussed in this article have been expanded in a follow-up piece:  "Mainstream Media's Mythos:  How Well Does U.S. Healthcare Quality Actually Compare?"