Health Care Reform Vote Postmortem

It was a beautiful weekend, almost summer like, which is wonderful considering it is mid-March. There was so much to do outside, and yet the idea of watching history being made led me to check in to the C-SPAN coverage of the health care reform vote several times. I can now say with 100% certainty that I spent a year watching C-SPAN one afternoon.

Why must the forward march of modern democracy be so sluggishly boring? Critics of Obama’s health care reforms insisted that the Democrats hastily pushed this legislation through. Those critics should be reminded that the hasty push took fourteen months to complete. If they still believe that the reform bill was shoved through quickly, then I would encourage them to watch any video from C-SPAN’s coverage of the last day of the debate. A few hours of watching Congress go through the motions, points of order, votes for resolutions, votes for amendments, votes for debate on the resolutions, votes for debate on the amendments ad nauseum should convince them that the excitement of watching legislation moving forward is only exceeded by the cliffhanging drama of watching paint dry!

No wonder I gave up and went to bed early. I missed the big moment of history in the making sometime near midnight, but it only proves the old wisdom that history is made at night. Yes, I realize that that old rationale is actually a double entendre referencing man’s desires below the belt, but it still works.

So congratulations to President Obama and Congressional Democrats for taking the courageous, potentially politically dangerous step forward towards universal health coverage. A pox on those tea partiers who stooped to using racist and hateful language and physical violence on Congresspeople as they entered the Capital building. Kudos to (warning - I am about to say something nice about Fox News) Fox and Friends hosts and leaders of the Tea Party movement for condemning those same acts. They rightfully acknowledged that they must keep all political discourse civil if they hope to have their views taken seriously.

Two personal notes regarding the passage of the health care reform laws...

To Sarah Palin, who recently asked President Obama how that “hopey-changey thing was going”? I think today we can answer that the hopey-changey thing is doing great. Thanks for asking, you betcha!

To Rush Limbaugh, who reportedly has vowed to leave the country when Obamacare becomes law? Rush, call me! Anne Marie and I will be more than happy to travel down to Florida and help you pack! No, just kidding! I wouldn’t be able to drag Anne Marie down to Florida even if I tied her to a pack of rabid tea partiers.

This leaves only the Republicans out in the cold. They are now turning their sour grapes into actions like having the new law declared unconstitutional, repealed, and/or campaign to have those responsible for its passage replaced in November. Nice try, ladies and gentleman, but we have other problems that need our attention now: unemployment, the economy, the environment, not to mention the international challenges facing us.

Perhaps this rhetorical cold water in the face will help them see the situation to which I’m referring. In the midst of the weekend debates, one grandparent e-mailed her opposition to health care reform to one of the media outlets. She felt it would put an undue financial burden on her great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren. To her I say this, “Grandma, look on the bright side! Iran may nuke us long before your great-great-grandchildren are ever born!”

It’s time to move on and go forward...

(Thank you for reading. Please remember that hope is a feeling that change is for the better!)