The problem? A divided colony. Goodwife Deliverance Hobbs leads the pro-leeching faction that wants to subsidize the service for all. The opposition is fronted by one of the colony’s ultimate power players, an author and minister named Cotton Mather. First he accuses Ms. Hobbs of being a socialist, and then he ups the ante by calling her -- wait for it -- a witch. 

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This historical footnote -- embellished, to be sure -- reminds us of something important: that America has been ambivalent about how to deliver and fund health care since its inception. Back then, the rhetoric was heated, emotions ran high, and common ground was hard to find, just as it is today. As we watch the Obamacare debate play out -- in the halls of Congress, in the press, and up and down Main Street -- it seems a good time for health providers like us to take stock of things. And if we do, one conclusion seems inescapable. 

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The trust we've worked so hard to earn has begun to slip away.

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Consider the Wall Street Journal. It recently printed an op-ed written by the physician who created the surgical checklist that's been adopted by the World Health Organization. An op-ed whose headline was both arresting and troubling... and I quote:

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How to Stop Hospitals from Killing Us.

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Yes, it's true: the nation's best-known business publication used the word hospitals in the same context it would use the word terrorists....