Why No Outrage Over Deaths Caused by Medical Errors?

Mistakes that occur in a hospital setting are the real death panels out there. Yet these unnecessary deaths garner little attention:

Just before Thanksgiving, the Times did place on the front page a New England Journal of Medicine study concluding that the death rate from medical injury had not declined since 1999. Worth noting was were the vague explanations by health care leaders as to why progress has been so slow. Additionally, the story did not even mention the HHS report, which was based on a seemingly better methodology and more recent data. Perhaps the medical editors don't read the business pages.

Completely ignored by all was a careful study released in August by the Society of Actuaries that used claims data from private insurers. Even in this younger and presumably healthier population, errors in 2008 caused more than 2,500 avoidable deaths -- not to mention more than "10 million lost days of work." (I presume this figure refers to the effect of injured workers, not dead ones.)