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Try a little thought experiment. Suppose somebody invented a new kind of hospital. At first, nobody — not even the inventors — knew whether these new hospitals would work. But gradually the evidence came in — and it showed the new hospitals working better than the old ones. Not all of them, and not all the time. But most of them and more often than not.

In the new hospitals, the patients got better faster. Not only that: The new hospitals worked special wonders with the sickest patients — the poor and minority cohorts traditional hospitals often wrote off as hopeless. And just to put a cherry on top of the sundae, the new hospitals usually charged less. Sometimes much less.

Naturally, word got around. More and more of the new-format hospitals began opening. Yet demand for space in them grew even faster. People joined lotteries and waiting lists, hoping they could get in. They held rallies demanding new-format hospitals and wrote to politicians, asking for help in getting a new-format hospital in their neighborhood.

Well, you could imagine what would happen next. The old-fashioned hospitals would start raising heck. They would complain that the new hospitals were cherry-picking patients. That they were kicking out patients who didn’t heal fast enough. That they were in the hospital business to make money, not to help cure the sick.