There were some bangers in yesterday’s Year-End Roundup. Check out my Substack for the full video.

Millions of white people have died or been bankrupted because of racism. We would have had universal healthcare 80 years ago…. when Trumann proposed it BUT for racism and the refusal to integrate hospitals and provide a benefit that would include Black people.

EDIT: When we look at the number of people who have died each year because they lacked health insurance, even the most conservative figures are staggering—and these numbers reflect only the era of modern record-keeping. One widely cited estimate, based on NIH-linked research from 2006, places the figure at approximately 26,000 deaths per year. Other studies suggest the number may be as high as 45,000 annually.

Even if we take a conservative midpoint of 35,000 deaths per year, the implications are devastating. If the United States had adopted universal health care when it was seriously debated and politically viable in the mid-20th century, that would mean 2.8 million people have died over the past 80 years simply because they lacked access to health insurance—and that figure is almost certainly an undercount.

In the mid-1940s through the early 1950s, only about 23% of Americans had any form of health insurance. During that period, people—especially children—routinely died from illnesses that are now preventable or easily treatable, many of which were later effectively controlled through vaccines, antibiotics, and basic access to medical care. Once you account for that reality, the true number of preventable deaths is likely far higher, plausibly at least double—five million people minimum.

And it is important to say this plainly: because white Americans made up the vast majority of the U.S. population during much of this period, most of those deaths were white people. This edit is not about minimizing racial harm; it is about making clear that racism in public policy produces mass casualties for everyone.