America enjoys the best health care in the world, but the best is

“America enjoys the best health care in the world, but the best is no good if folks can’t afford it, access it, and doctors can’t provide it.” Thus spoke Bill Frist, a healer and statesman who saw with both the eyes of the physician and the conscience of the citizen. His words cut to the heart of a paradox that echoes through the ages — that greatness without compassion is but a hollow boast. What worth is the finest temple of medicine if its doors are closed to those in pain? What value has knowledge or skill if the sick lie beyond its reach? Frist reminds us that health care, like wisdom or justice, fulfills its purpose only when it serves all, not merely the fortunate few.

In the wisdom of the ancients, the art of healing was sacred — a covenant between the physician, the sufferer, and the divine. The healer was not a merchant but a guardian of life’s fragile flame. Hippocrates, the father of medicine, swore an oath that still echoes through the centuries: to treat the sick according to ability and judgment, and never to harm. But when the path to care is barred by the walls of wealth, the oath itself trembles. For healing, when chained by greed or policy, ceases to be holy — it becomes a privilege purchased, not a right protected.

Frist’s lament arises from this truth: that excellence without access is an illusion. A nation may build hospitals that shine like palaces, fill them with wondrous machines, and train doctors whose knowledge rivals that of the ancients — but if the common people cannot afford to enter, such greatness becomes a monument to irony. The best health care means little when the mother must choose between feeding her child and filling a prescription, or when the farmer in the countryside cannot find a physician within a hundred miles. True excellence is not in wealth of resources, but in the reach of compassion.

Consider the story of Clara Barton, the “Angel of the Battlefield,” who walked among the dying soldiers of the American Civil War. She had neither riches nor title, but she brought aid where others brought despair. With simple tools and boundless mercy, she healed without regard for uniform or fortune. Her courage birthed the American Red Cross, an institution built on the belief that care must never be confined to those who can pay for it. Her life was a living rebuke to the world’s indifference, and a testament to what Frist declares: that healing is not about privilege, but presence — the ability to reach those who need it most.

The doctor’s burden is not merely to cure bodies, but to mend the wounds of inequality. Yet Frist also warns of another tragedy — that even healers themselves are hindered. “Doctors can’t provide it,” he says, for what use is skill when bureaucracy, exhaustion, and cost crush the spirit of those who serve? In the ancient temples of Asclepius, healers prayed not for wealth, but for strength — strength to endure, to remain faithful to their calling despite hardship. Today, that prayer is needed more than ever. A society that overburdens its healers will one day find itself bereft of healing.

Thus, Frist’s words call us to balance wisdom with mercy, excellence with equity. To have the best is meaningless unless the best is shared. The ancients knew that a society’s true greatness is measured not by the power of its rulers, nor the splendor of its cities, but by how it treats its weakest. A healthy people are the foundation of a lasting civilization; to neglect them is to build upon sand. Health care is not a luxury of the rich, but the very heartbeat of the common good.

Let this be the lesson for our time: that no system, however advanced, can be called “the best” if it leaves its people behind. Leaders must remember that the measure of progress is not technological, but human — not how high we can build, but how deeply we can care. Let citizens remember that the health of one affects the health of all, and that compassion is the truest medicine.

So carry Bill Frist’s wisdom as a sacred charge: the best health care is worthless if it is unreachable. Demand that healing be made just, that access be made fair, and that compassion guide policy as much as profit does. For when the healer’s art serves every hand, when every child can be treated, and when mercy is not bought but given — then, and only then, shall a nation be truly well.