First of all, if there is anyone reading this diary who has not seen Keith Olbermann's passionate Special Comment from last night, please go and view it via DailyKos TV. I just finished watching it myself; frankly I fell asleep last night midway through. I am just, well, speechless. Thank you, Keith, for that passionate cry for reform.
Secondly, I am a primary care internist who, for the last three months, has been working in a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) in the city of Baltimore. Maryland was recently ranked the wealthiest state in the country, per capita; we have the wealthiest counties in the country by many measurements. However, when ranked by zip codes, Baltimore City has several of the bottom 10 in the country. We have the "Best Hospital" according to US News in Johns Hopkins; right down the street is one of the FQHCs in the city that qualifies for loan repayment for doctors, based on being a medically unserserved area.
If this doesn't represent the criminal dichotomy of the US healthcare system, I don't know what does.
And, oh, the stories I could tell from the FQHC. I thought I had a lot to tell from my years of working with residents in my prior jobs. Three months has eclipsed all that in ways I frankly never thought possible.
So, on to my experience today.
