By The River

We're almost there. We almost have the first American national healthcare plan.

The Senate this morning (I got up and watched the vote on C-Span2) voted 60-39 to approve the Obama healthcare bill. No Republicans voted for it, which I think will come back to haunt them. One Republican didn't vote at all, but I haven't yet heard who that was.

I was hoping that a couple of Republicans, now that they knew the Democrats had a filibuster-proof majority, would break away from the pack to stand on the right side of history. But the power of the GOP diehards and the teabagger thugs is such that none dared do it. Not that there are more than three or four quasi-moderate Republican senators left.

This isn't the last step. The bill now goes to conference committee to resolve the differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill, and where progressives may mount a last ditch effort to save the 'public option' or Medicare buy-in.

None of us who have supported national healthcare for years are happy with the bill, especially as the final version approved in conference is not likely to have the public option. But it is a critical first step. We are far better off with this bill than without it. As a journalist, I met many people over the decades who would have benefited from this bill. They came to me as a last resort.

The day is in sight when we no longer will experience the national shame of people holding bakesales to raise money for treatment of a sick person who has no insurance or inadequate insurance. The day is in sight when a stone-hearted insurance functionary hoping for a bonus can no longer deny treatment to a desperately ill child so her company can make its quarterly profit numbers. No, not all insurance companies are bad. But too many of them are, and even one is too many.

No more bakesales, No more deaths from no insurance or bad insurance. From this bill will finally come, eventually, national healthcare worthy of the nation we are.