The Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic, founded during the Summer of Love in 1967 by David E. Smith, MD and his associates, was in the forefront of a burgeoning free and community clinic movement that changed the nature of the U.S. health care delivery system.

The National Free Clinic Council served as a focus for the free clinic movement, organizing conferences for its hundreds of members in the 1970s and publishing the proceedings as a record of the discussions. The National Association of Free and Charitable Clinics [http://www.nafcclinics.org/] provides resources and advocacy for approximately 1200 members since 2001, and is taking an active role in the fight for affordable health care.