“[Referring to private hospital funding alone:] That won't work, it will never be enough, good health care costs a lot of money, remembering 'the distant parts of this province' in which 'assistance cannot be procured, but at an expense that neither [the sick-poor] nor their townships can afford.' … '[This] seems essential to the true spirit of Christianity, and should be extended to all in general, whether deserving or undeserving, as far as our power reaches.”

— Benjamin Franklin

In 1751, Franklin's friend, Dr. Thomas Bond, convinced him to champion the building of a public hospital. Through his hard work and political ingenuity, Franklin brought the skeptical legislature to the table, bargaining his way to use public money to build what would become Pennsylvania Hospital. Franklin proposed an institution that would provide — 'free of charge' —the finest health care to everybody, 'whether inhabitants of the province or strangers,' even to the 'poor diseased foreigners"' (referring to the immigrants of German stock that the colonials tended to disparage and discriminate). Countering the Assembly's insistence that the hospital be built only with private donations, Franklin made the above statement. Various articles by Franklin supporting his Appeal for the Hospital in The Pennsylvania Gazette (1751) as quoted in Pulphead: Essays by John Jeremiah Sullivan.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "[Referring to private hospital funding alone:] That won't work, it will never be enough, good health care costs a lot o…" by Benjamin Franklin?

Benjamin Franklin 183

American author, printer, political theorist, politician, p… 1706–1790

Related quotes

“It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer "universal health care."”

Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author

Random Thought
2000s, Ever Wonder Why? and Other Controversial Essays (2006)
Source: Knowledge And Decisions

“Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law [this quote is referring to English Common Law].”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Vol. 1 Whether Christianity is Part of the Common Law (1764) Broken link http://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/Jefferson0136/Works/0054-01_Bk.pdf. Published in The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes http://oll.libertyfund.org/ToC/0054.php, Federal Edition, Paul Leicester Ford, ed., New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904, p. 459
1760s

“Medicaid is a study in contradiction. Thanks to it, America's neediest get health care paid for by taxpayers. Often they get better health care than taxpayers can afford for themselves. The program is both 'free' and break-the-bank expensive. It lets poor people look rich and rich people look poor, and it rewards lawyers and druggists with real wealth. Medicaid works so well it's going broke.”

Joe Barton (1949) United States congressional representative from Texas

[Save Medicaid from itself, The Washington Times, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2005/oct/30/20051030-100351-6365r/?page=all]

“The opposite of work is idleness. But very few of us know what to do with idleness. When you look at the way that we distribute our lives in general, you realize that in the periods in which we have a lot of money, we have very little time. And then when we finally have time, we have neither the money nor the health.”

Ricardo Semler (1959) Brazilian businessman

TED: "How to run a company with (almost) no rules" https://www.ted.com/talks/ricardo_semler_how_to_run_a_company_with_almost_no_rules/ (October 2014)

“I repeat, let us paint as much as we can and be productive, and be ourselves with all our faults and qualities; I say us, because the money from you [Theo], which I know costs you trouble enough to procure me, gives you the right, when there is some good in my work, to consider half of it your creation.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Nuenen, The Netherlands, Spring 1885; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, p. 7 (letter 399)
1880s, 1885

“Neither thieves nor officials produce a marketable good to offset what they take; they contribute nothing to the purchasing power because they contribute nothing to the general fund of wealth.”

Frank Chodorov (1887–1966) American libertarian thinker

Source: Fugitive Essays: Selected Writings of Frank Chodorov (1980), p. 273

“Esteem money neither more nor less than it deserves, it is a good servant and a bad master.”

Alexandre Dumas, fils (1824–1895) French writer and dramatist, son of the homonym writer and dramatist

N'estime l'argent ni plus ni moins qu'il ne vaut: c'est un bon serviteur et un mauvais maître.
Preface to Théatre complet de Al. Dumas fils (Paris: Michel Lévy Frères, 1863) vol. 1, p. 4; translation from Ernest Smith Fields of Adventure (Boston: Small, Maynard, 1924) p. 99.

“Health care costs so darn much because we pay so darn little for it… So we have almost no incentive to care about how much it cost… Most of what we spend on health care is other people’s money. We never spend other people’s money as carefully as we spend our own.”

David R. Henderson (1950) American economist

Source: The Joy of Freedom: An Economist’s Odyssey (2002), p. 256

“The Gospel takes away our right forever, to discriminate between the deserving and the undeserving poor.”

Dorothy Day (1897–1980) Social activist

“Pity the Party without enough woman power - there will always be dreamers and leaders, but the dreams won't come true, nor will the leaders reach their goal, without the ready doers.”

Judy LaMarsh (1924–1980) Canadian politician, writer, broadcaster and barrister.

Source: Memoirs Of A Bird In A Gilded Cage (1969), CHAPTER 3, The truth squad, p. 36

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Benjamin Franklin 183

Related quotes

Related topics