Again tonight, Hinderaker argues that the US will soon get stuck with UK-style socialized medicine, and it will be the bane of us all. But there are at least two false premises here: (i) most Americans already experience an irrational system of rationed care (if one does not have very high end, expensive private insurance, from a current or prior employer), and (ii) the overall outcomes in the UK are better, almost across the board, for the types of care… the Brits do get.

So… our very wasteful, high-priced non-system (with wildly-overcompensated doctors, as compared to their EU counterparts) actually does worse — on many dimensions that matter. First, in many states (especially in the rural South), a young mother giving birth faces worse survival odds, for herself, and her baby — than many developing nations in Central Europe see — and geometrically worse than all of Western European nations. Shameful.

We are annually somewhere between number 53 to 58, on that shameful global list — for safe delivery outcomes… despite literally throwing hundreds of billions into high end hotel-like birthing suites, etc.

The problem is — the US non-system is so capitalistic, and un-monitored… at for profit hospitals… that it caters in significant measure to the richest one percent… and often (in the rural South) offers only 19^th Century care to public aid patients.

Just to fully put the lie to Hinderaker’s nonsense… consider cardiac care, after an acute event — but not just for the former partners of law firms, or the former hedge fund managing directors and crypto-bros:

Yes, Americans do — in the main ultimately get treated, and in the main… survival data whilst waiting (often for almost 18 months!)… is improving. But… yes, John Americans too are plainly experiencing rationed care.

You are just salty that brown and black cardiac care patients (at least in the last few years, since the full-implementation of Obamacare) are doing… pretty well, even in this non-system.

But no, John, all your money… isn’t buying you the clear whyte privilege here you might imagine. Why? Because it is more than occasionally driven more directly by red state politics, than science — (a la the Tennessee example at left, under Tangerine — and Marsha Blackburn).

Suck that.