While a heated and extremely well-attended debate was raging this evening at the BSLC here on campus, a young woman lay down on the floor in the women's restroom one floor above the discussion and barely moved, her voice just above a whisper, her skin pale and sweaty.

She had come to attend the debate, had excused herself and ended up in on the floor of a cubicle. Somehow I got involved -- I was asked by the person who discovered her to go find the woman's boyfriend.

I failed to do so even after repeated tries in that packed lecture theatre. It was only after the paramedics came, hoisted her into a sitting position on a bright orange stretcher-chair, and wheeled her into the lecture theatre to identify her boyfriend from the entrance, that he was finally found.

While accompanying the paramedics and the woman to the lecture theatre, I was informed that the woman couldn't be sent to the University of Chicago hospital right next to campus unless she could notify someone who knew her. Otherwise regardless of her condition she would only be admitted to the nearest "provident hospital".

As I signalled her boyfriend to leave his seat and exit the lecture theatre with the paramedics and the woman, the debate was still in full swing. The irony of the whole thing is why I'm typing this out -- the debate was about whether the US should provide universal health care for its citizens under a single-payer national health system.