America’s public health infrastructure is largely private... and that’s a good thing.
The history of medicine has innumerable examples of mankind’s triumphs over disease: smallpox, typhus, cholera, diphtheria, measles, mumps, polio, whooping cough, rubella, and many nameless maladies have been consigned to the dustbin of history. Religious orders, charities, and governments all played a hand in bringing these diseases to an end. The names are legend: the Red Cross, the March of Dimes, and today, the American hospitals and clinics doing mission-driven work, often in the most challenging settings, inspired by religious and philanthropic ideals.
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