Here's to Your Health VIII

Welcome to what may be the final entry in the should-be-Pulitzer-Prize-winning "Here's to Your Health" series. Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that President Obama today signed into law a diluted but still historic bill that will begin to reform this country's often dysfunctional system for providing healthcare.

Republicans, no doubt, are disappointed that the world didn't end.

(Digression: For an eloquent if infuriating commentary on the civic depredations of the Party of No, see Bob Herbert's column in the Times. EOD)

Now that we have the policy, we can't wait to see how the politics plays out. The Grand Ol' Party was convinced that a vote for healthcare was essentially an act of political suicide. When President Obama was rallying wavering Democrats to vote for the bill, he spoke of how touching it was that Republicans were looking out for the political interests of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid by warning them not to vote for this awful bill.

Are Americans united in their hatred of healthcare reform? We suppose we'll find out come November. We suspect, though, that when Election Day rolls around, and voters realize that they have not lost access to the doctors they have always had, that their paychecks have not been confiscated to pay for Obamacare, that no one has hauled Grandma in front of a Death Panel to be efficiently executed in the name of cost savings--when some of those voters see that they can not be denied insurance because of pre-existing conditions or because they lose or change jobs--when a 22-year-old Tea Partier struggling to make ends meet finds out she can still be covered through her parents' health insurance policy--we suspect that, when all this happens, many of those who were screaming or scared or just uneasy about the healthcare legislation may not be in such a mood to throw the bastards out of office.

And as for those Republicans who vow that, once they get into office, they will make it their first priority to repeal this legislation? Their Democratic competitors should follow the advice of Senator Robert Menendez: Challenge them! "Well, Sir, which aspects of the law would you like to repeal? The part about people with pre-existing conditions not being denied coverage? The part about job portability? Which part would you like to take away?"

Should make for an interesting debate.

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Addendum: Sol's Bud (aka FOS) has joined the blogosphere. All Sloppists should check out Reflections of a Special Needs Dad.