Public Health in the Age of Health Care Reform

Preventive medicine has vast unused possibilities for improving the health of the population, partly in ways that require compulsory controls, like quarantine and compulsory immunization, partly through systematic arrangements for personal check-ups and early diagnosis and treatment. Without going into the controversial question of socialized medicine, it is clear that health is a national asset, and the undisputed judgment of the people is that it is worth conserving, more or less regardless of whether it can be done on purely commercial principles. JM Clark, 1950 (1)