Not Without Honor

(Adapted from Shakespeare by W. Marcus Newberry)
Friends, Americans, patients, lend me your ears:
I come to praise medical care, not to bury it.
The evil in society is amplified and repeated;
The good often retreats from high expectations;
So let it be with medical care. The noble body politic
Has told you medical care is too costly:
If it is so, it is a grievous fault,
And grievously medical care answers for it.
(Here under leave of the body politic and the rest-
For the body politic are honorable people;
So are they all, all honorable people)-
I come to speak in medical care's dark hour.
The practice of medicine has served me well:
But the body politic says it is too costly;
And the body politic is composed of honorable people.
Medical care has relieved many physical ills,
Bringing comfort to society's members:
Did this in medical care seem too costly?
When that the sick had cried, medical care agonized.
Affluence should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet the body politic says medical care is too costly;
And the body politic is composed of honorable people.
You all did see that in the halls of government
Diseases are given costly crowns,
And health is forsaken: what nod to cost is this?
Yet the body politic says medical care is too costly;
And, sure, they are honorable people.
I speak not to disprove what the body politic spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love medical care once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then to appreciate it now?
O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And people have lost their reason! Bear with me;
My heart is in sympathy with medical care,
But lest I forget,
There is more to good health than medical care.