ecause they're pretty responsible and there's a logic to it and there are ways you can tell most of the time.

I got a second opinion. So the second ER doctor had a different take on it and it went like this. He too was not disagreeing with the basic premise that a doctor can know the accurate cause of death let's say ninety-five percent of the time. So both doctors seem to be on that same page that the doctor knows and that it's not a problem of the doctor not knowing. Okay, so just keep that, put a pin in it. Two doctors who actually do this work are sure that they do a pretty good job. And I think that they would tell me the truth if they knew they were guessing. I think they'd say, well we honestly it's hard to tell. We just take our best shot. We think we're right most of the time. I think they would have said that because why wouldn't they? It's not like they would have to hide that. It's people doing the best they can with the information they have. It wouldn't be any kind of a bad mark on the record or anything. But instead both of them seem to believe that the doctor can actually identify the cause of death and that all the evidence is going to be pretty clear ninety-five percent of the time.

But the second ER doctor added this little bit of flavor to the discussion and said yes but there might be tremendous economic incentive to cheat. To which I said, just paraphrasing a longer conversation, to which I said I don't believe that a doctor would cheat for the benefit of the hospital because the doctor has all the incentive in the world to just do the job right. I don't think there are a lot of doctors who are going into the doctor business to get something over on the world. I think most doctors just want to do a good job. And I don't see, and so I said to myself I can't really see a doctor intentionally mischaracterizing the cause of death when the doctor's pay wouldn't change anyway but maybe the hospital will make more money this way. And so I couldn't square that.

And so here was the counter-argument which I give some weight to. It goes like this. The hospital has a relationship with the doctors in which the doctors need to make the hospital happy and the hospital has to make the doctors happy. And if either become unhappy then they don't have a relationship and that's not good. And so the thought was that if the hospital definitely wants more coronavirus outcomes in terms of death certificates then even though the doctor is not inclined to lie and even though the doctor doesn't have a direct benefit, it's really the hospital has the benefit, would the doctor be a team player and maybe be a little bit flexible on the ones that are sort of on the fence? To which they say good point. Yeah that's a good point. I would imagine that's exactly what to expect with human beings. Has nothing to do with hospitals and doctors but with human beings. You could expect if somebody has a relationship and money's involved that if somebody wants something are they going to be sort of subtly if not directly pressured to give that thing that your partner wants?

But here's my summary of