Hospitals are not like airports; patients are not like airplanes

In writing blog posts that are critical of other writing one of my goals is not to point to the specific flaws of any particular article. No one has time to discredit all of the specious and nonsensical things that get posted, even by reputable outlets, to the internet each day. One of the things I try, and you can let me know if I'm failing, is to point out some of the tricks used to manipulate and/or mislead readers.

Which brings me to the false dichotomies. For an excellent example there's this piece in the Washington Monthly. You don't even have to read past the subhead to find the comparison:

Last year there wasn’t a single fatal airline accident in the developed world. So why is the U.S. health care system still accidentally killing hundreds of thousands? The answer is a lack of transparency.

I've added emphasis on a particularly important part here, and I'll get back to it in a bit.