Community-based national health proposals, 1914-1917 and 1974-1977

Over the years health activists sought radical reform of the health system they knew. The recurring vision was a government program open to all people, free of profit incentives, accountable to the users and with an emphasis on prevention by cooperative groups of practitioners working in harmony. Some health activists believed such a system was not possible without radical societal change. More commonly, as is the case with these two proposals, the existing economic and political order is assumed.