Flying Pink Unicorns

HEALTH CARE REFORM PASSED!

The epochal, hugely historic health care reform measure just passed the House!  Today will, in time, be seen as one of the great legislative days in the history of the United States!  I haven't been this thrilled with anything political in the United States, ever.  Nothing in my lifetime (1970) is even close.

Teddy Roosevelt first proposed universal health care for all.  FDR seriously considered including it in what became Social Security in 1935.  Truman proposed it in the 1940s.  Nixon proposed it in the 1970s.  Nixon was a Republican, as was Teddy Roosevelt.  Clinton, as we all know, proposed it and worked hard on it for a year.  And while what emerges as law in the next week doesn't come especially close to truly universal coverage, it is a huge step forward.  It is also a vital step towards a sane and rational health care system that doesn't cost twice as much per person as France or Germany.

Following a weekend of incredibly high drama, with every vote fought over tooth and nail, and with the outcome in doubt until early this afternoon, just moments ago, the House passed the Senate version of health care reform.  This horribly flawed bill now goes to Obama, who will of course sign it, probably tomorrow.  Passage of the health care reform legislation represents a huge victory for him, as he was, as I said in my post yesterday, all in on Health Care reform.  The amount of effort, time, thought, arm twisting and sheer energy put into this bill by Obama, Nancy, Harry, and so many other very important people will surely be chronicled in best selling books to come, and maybe even a $100 million grossing documentary.  There is a lengthy New York Times article on this point today, which I haven't yet read. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/health/policy/21reconstruct.html

The Senate must now vote on the House fixes to the Senate bill, and will do so via use of reconciliation, which means that it cannot be filibustered, and is guaranteed an up or down vote.  Harry Reid (Senate Majority Leader) and Dick Durbin (the # 2, and the guy responsible for counting the votes) have very confidently and quite credibly said they have the 50 votes to pass this series of fixes.  If the Senate passes the same set of fixes as the House did earlier today, those fixes will go to Obama for his signature, which again should happen pretty quickly.  The entire health care reform effort of the last year should (finally) be over in less than 5 days.  A year and change of intense effort, following on talks over decades, stretching back to Teddy Roosevelt, albeit with long periods of inaction, has now, for the moment, ended.  A great, great deal of work remains in the coming years, to be sure, but I suspect Congress is going to take a fairly long break from serious health care reform.

We have made huge strides down the long, arduous road towards universal health coverage (and a rational health care system).  This is just a monster win for America, a truly great day for us all, even though a great many Americans can't see that yet.

There is no easy way to measure it, but this bill probably consumed more presidential effort than any since the great Civil Rights Act of 1964.  And it passed.  *whew*.  Now, after the Senate presumably votes to approve the house-approved changes to the original Senate bill (I'm probably going to blogger hell after writing that last sentence) health care reform can get off the front pages and people can see that it doesn't do any of the terrible things that the the GOP says it does.  And so will begin the democrats' and Obama's political rebound.  More on that in a coming post.