The Reality-Based Community: Rationing Health Care

Now that Michael Moore's SICKO has raised again the question why the Canadian health care system functions so much better than ours, supporters of the current mess have gone back to chanting

Hip replacement! Rationing! Hip replacement! Rationing! Markets! Markets! Markets! Markets! Sis, boom bah!

or words to that effect.

The response, of course, is that rationing, including rationing by queuing, is just as much a feature of the U.S. system as it is of competing systems. And while waiting for a hip replacement sounds pretty bad, there are worse things to have to wait for. Take it from me.