They came with toothaches, limps, blurred vision and sniffling children.
Inglewood's Fabulous Forum, where Magic and Kareem once operated, became a MASH unit Tuesday for 1,500 uninsured people who began queuing up at 2 a.m., desperate for medical attention.
What an inspiration it was to see teams of volunteer doctors and nurses helping patients as part of a charity called Remote Area Medical. And what an indictment, as well, that a group known for its work in Appalachia was needed in the land of palm-shaded mansions.
"I got here at 4:10 and this is my number," said Rita Dirden, who at 11 a.m. was still waiting in the parking lot for 998 to be called. Her friends had numbers 1,131 and 1,193, and all three were desperate for eyeglasses and dental work.
Inside the arena, Andrea Scott had gone from eye doctor to dentist to gynecologist before lining up for a mammogram. She said she'd been uninsured since losing a job in real estate finance in 2003, and had avoided medical visits because of the cost.
"You just deal with it, honey," she told me. "What can you do?"
Actually, I know a doctor who has an answer that he calls simple, tax-free and apolitical.
Could there be such a thing?
"It's not a Democratic plan," Glendale surgeon Paul Toffel told me recently. "It's not a Republican plan. It's a common sense plan."
One that doesn't include President Obama's call for a public option, because Toffel thinks that if the government were involved, too many patients would be denied costly specialized care when they need it. But the doctor's pitch won't make any health insurance executives happy either.
"Somebody has to have the courage to go against that industry," Toffel said.
His plan might never get farther than this page. But it's not as if they're approaching a consensus on any aspect of healthcare reform in Washington, where it's looking more like a mud-wrestling exhibition than a high summit. So why not at least hear from a doctor with 40 years in practice and a desire to make medicine affordable to every American?
Toffel, a clinical professor at USC's Keck School of Medicine, is a head and neck surgeon whose patients have included truck driver Reginald Denny (a beating victim in the 1992 riots), basketball player Rudy Tomjanovich (hit with a nearly fatal punch from Laker Kermit Washington in 1977), and me (for mere sinus surgery). Toffel dedicated his career to his father, a Watts shoe store owner who was shot and killed during a hold-up in the aftermath of the 1965 Watts riots.
