Spot on. People absorb some opinion from somewhere - it's almost a cultural, tribal thing. They adopt that opinion. And then confirm it endlessly via Google University's excellent and popular Confirmation Bias program, as demonstrated by the GP's links.
All systems fail, even if it's only rarely. But as soon as they do people seize upon the failure as if it's some kind of conclusive proof of the gut feeling they had all along. They are seemingly completely incapable of thinking in terms of statistics and average, large-scale outcomes. This is, of course, not at all confined to the health care "debate". The situation is so bad that I wonder if some kind of rational risk assessment/statistical thinking course should be introduced in schooling.
All systems fail, even if it's only rarely. But as soon as they do people seize upon the failure as if it's some kind of conclusive proof of the gut feeling they had all along. They are seemingly completely incapable of thinking in terms of statistics and average, large-scale outcomes. This is, of course, not at all confined to the health care "debate". The situation is so bad that I wonder if some kind of rational risk assessment/statistical thinking course should be introduced in schooling.