Today, at the Forum in Inglewood, California, thousands lined up for a free clinic to get health care, dental care, and vision care.
According to the story, people started lining up at 3 a.m., and by the 11 a.m., they were up to seeing patient No. 800.
More below the flip.
At the pace this free clinic appears to be going, they're going to see somewhere around 16,000 people and turn away countless others.
Meanwhile, these crazy teabaggers are disrupting town halls around the country, fighting against these peoples' right to affordable, accessible health care. It's not right.
When a free clinic in Los Angeles looks like Black Friday at Best Buy, we have a problem in this country that needs to be addressed, and not with pithy bumper sticker slogans and paranoid fantasies about "death panels", but with real, genuine solutions.
As good as this free clinic is, it can't solve the problem. These people will go home and not be able to get the follow-up care many of them will need. It's not of much help to be diagnosed with high blood pressure or diabetes if one cannot afford the medications to treat the condition. It does no good to know one needs to get braces or oral surgery if one cannot afford it.
We need a calm, rational dialogue about what we're going to do so that the working poor do not need to rely on once-a-year free clinics for health care, not a shouting match in front of our Congressmen and Congresswomen.