“The poorest in America are the sickets. Poor people can't afford preventive care or insurance. The poor don't see doctors. They show up at our doorstep when things are advanced.”

Abraham Verghese
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“So Medicare decided to pay hospitals like ours for internship andresidency training programs, get it? It’s a win-win, as they say—the hospitalgets patients cared for by interns and residents around the clock,people like us who live on site, and whose stipend is a bloody fraction of what the hospital would pay full-time physicians. And Medicare delivers health care to the poor.”


“That's the funny thing about America - the blessed thing. As many people as there are to hold you back, there are angels whose humanity makes up for all the others." p 405”


“We stopped you from going, didn't we? Me and Shiva. Our birth?"Don't be silly. Can you imagine me giving up this?" he said sweeping his hand to indicate family, Missing, the home he'd made out of a bungalow. "I've been blessed. My genius was to know long ago that money alone wouldn't make me happy. Or maybe that's my excuse for not leaving you a huge fortune! I certainly could have made more money if that had been my goal. But one thing I won't have is regrets. My VIP patients often regret so many things on their deathbeds. They regret the bitterness they'll leave in people's hearts. They realize the no money, no church service, no eulogy, no funeral procession no matter how elaborate, can remove the legacy of a mean spirit.Of course, you and I have seen countless deaths among the poor. Their only regret surely is being born poor, suffering from birth to death. You know, in the book of Job, Job says to God, 'You should've taken me straight from the womb to the tomb! Why the in-between part, why life, if it was just to suffer?' Something like that. For the poor, death is at least the end of suffering.”


“[American ambulance crews] salvaged people we'd never see in Missing, because no one would have tied to bring them to a hospital. Judging someone to be beyond help never crossed the minds of police, firemen, or doctors here.”


“When a man is a mystery to himself you can hardly call him mysterious.""God will judge us by what we did to relieve the suffering of our fellow human beings. I don't think God cares what doctrine we embrace.”


“God will judge us, Mr. Harris, by--by what we did to relieve the suffering of our fellow human beings. I don't think God cares what doctrine we embrace.”