By claiming that Democrats are pushing health-care reform too quickly, Republicans are asking us to forget anything that happened before the last election. Americans have been talking about this problem for decades now; meanwhile little has been done about it. And as we have continued to talk, the problem has gotten much worse. Now Democrats who made health-care reform a prominent part of their platform have set about making good on their campaign promise. This is how democracy is supposed to work, no?

No doubt Republicans would like to see this—and every other important—question deferred until after the midterm elections. But Republican presidents and congressmen have been deferring or scuttling health-care reform for forty years. To the president they now say, Take your time. To themselves they say, Kill it. They call what's happening a hurry not because they think health-care reform is too important to rush, but because many of them still don't see what's so urgent about helping the fifty million Americans who are uninsured and the many millions more who are underinsured. This Times article could help them see, if they would stop using the American flag as a blindfold.

For the second day in a row, thousands of people lined up on Wednesday starting after midnight and snaking into the witching hours for free dental, medical and vision services, courtesy of a nonprofit group that more typically provides mobile health care for the rural poor.

Like a giant MASH unit, the floor of the Los Angeles Forum, the arena where Madonna once played four sold-out shows, housed aisle upon aisle of dental chairs, where drilling, cleaning and extracting took place in the open. A few cushions were duct-taped to a folding table in a coat closet, an examining room where Dr. Eugene Taw, a volunteer, saw patients.

When Remote Area Medical, the Tennessee-based organization running the event, decided to try its hand at large urban medical services, its principals thought Los Angeles would be a good place to start. But they were far from prepared for the outpouring of need. Set up for eight days of care, the group was already overwhelmed on the first day after allowing 1,500 people through the door, nearly 500 of whom had still not been served by days end and had to return in the wee hours Wednesday morning.

We have good reasons to hurry.