The guy approaching Dr. Peter Beilenson wore short pants, and he had ulcers on one of his legs that made everybody want to turn away. He was a construction worker who’d been injured on the job. He had no health insurance. The ulcers were getting worse, and he had nowhere to go for quick, affordable help.

The moment clings to Beilenson. He is the Howard County Health Officer now, but the construction worker approached him several years ago, back when Beilenson was Baltimore’s health commissioner, back before his unsuccessful run for Congress, back when the notion of universal health care was still being talked to death instead of launched into practice.