The Bill Passes

It happened. With all 435 members of the House of Representatives voting, the lower house of Congress passed the health care bill backed by President Obama, 220-215, with only one Republican (Joseph Cao of Louisiana) supporting it and 39 Democrats opposing it. This is good news for the White House, which needs some good news in light of the 10.2% unemployment rate reported on Friday.

Of course, that was only the easy part. In the Senate, where Republicans and anyone named Lieberman could conceivably make mischief with filibuster threats, it might be difficult to get the necessary votes to pass health care reform, and then it has to go to conference so that the same bill gets voted on by both houses. All of this could take weeks if not months. But last night's vote was clearly a step in the right direction.

Meanwhile, an amendment to the health care bill bans abortion funding. What's my opinion fo this? I really don't want to answer that question. Because I'm sick to death of the abortion debate. It's only going to go on until the end of time - which could be as early as next Tuesday - and it's going to be kept alive for eah side to score points against each other. It embarrasses me as an American that abortion is still argued over in the United States long after every other Western country has settled the issue, one way or the other.

Do I have an opinion on abortion? Certainly. Am I going to share it here? No, I'm going to follow the example of our Canadian neighbors and move on to other issues.