From Father Robert A. Sirico, via the Laticonomics blog:

I also worry about the “crowding out” effect that this vast expansion of the government into health care will have on voluntary charitable action. Somewhere along the line we have lost sight of the fact that charity and health care was not an invention of Washington bureaucrats. How did the more than 600 Catholic hospitals and clinics, and many more hospitals bearing the names Jewish, Presbyterian, Methodist, Adventist and Baptist, get built in this country? It wasn’t through the sufferance of government. Faith is the source of these works, not policy initiatives. Faith, because it involves the entire scope of the human person, body and soul, has not only a larger claim on our allegiance but a deeper commitment to our well being. Our faith communities know us as persons, not as welfare case numbers or voting blocs.

For more on how government crowds out faith-based and other private charity, see here.