There is a place for providers, a place for consumers, a place for insurers, a place for government programs—but over 40 million uninsured Americans wonder if there is also a place for charity in the U.S. health care system of the twenty-first century. Some experts argue that the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965 made doctors’ “charity cases” unnecessary, while others maintain that the managed care revolution of the 1970s made them impossible. The advent of Medicare, which gave health care coverage to all Americans over sixty-five, and Medicaid, which provided health care to low-income individuals, meant that doctors, hospitals, and other providers would be paid for services they might have previously rendered without cost. Further, studies done in 1996–1997 and again in 1998–1999 by Marie C. Reed, Peter J. Cunningham, and Jeffery...