Reparations in healthcare? Yes, it’s a thing. Throughout the nation, leading healthcare systems have been implementing programs that look to race to determine how to care for patients.

Physicians at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and elsewhere have described this approach as being based on a “reparations framework,” which they say is needed to redress “institutional racism” in healthcare. Consequently, Brigham patients presenting with chest pain, for example, may be treated differently depending on their race.