Obama delivers healthcare reform to America – from “Obamacare” to Obama cares!

This is what change looks like. We proved that this government – a government of the people and by the people – still works for the people.

This is how President Obama heralded the passage of the historic healthcare reform bill late Sunday night, showing his Republican opponents that two can play that this-is-what-the-American-people-want game.

The 219 to 212 vote in the House capped a 14-month sausage-making legislative process, which was distinguished by Republicans (not a single one of whom voted for the bill) doggedly rebuffing all of Obama’s efforts to draft a bipartisan bill.

In fact, Republicans were so resolute in their determination to turn healthcare reform into Obama’s “Waterloo” that they even disavowed measures that were once championed by Republican stalwarts like former President Ronald Reagan and former Sen. Bob Dole.

In any event, this bill immediately provides access to health insurance to 32 million uninsured Americans; prohibits unfair practices by insurance companies, such as denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions and increasing premiums arbitrarily; lowers prices on prescription drugs for seniors; grants health insurance tax credits to small business owners to cover their workers; and allows children under 26 to stay on their parents’ policies. Other benefits will be phased in over time.

Clearly the prospect of healthcare reform should have been cause for (belated) national celebration in this richest nation on earth, which prides itself on its charity towards others as well as adherence to other Christian values. But nothing could have been further from the truth.  For the debate leading up to last night’s historic vote was characterized by the kind of political rhetoric (complete with racial and homophobic epithets) one might expect of a banana republic on the brink of civil war.

Remarkably, the Republicans are still vowing to “kill the bill,” claiming, among other things, that it is a socialist manifesto that will usher in the death of American liberty. Even worse, the Christians who comprise their party’s base seem oblivious to the inconsistency between their fanatical opposition to healthcare reform and their attempts to imbue every facet of American life with their “Christian” values.

But the instructive symmetry between the 1960s fight for civil rights and this fight for healthcare reform should not be lost on anyone.  Not least because just as Martin Luther King Jr. used the kind, caring, and loving words of their professed faith to confront white racists (whose lips were dripping with words of interposition and nullification), Obama used those same Christian words to confront Republicans throughout this debate.

I have no faith, however, that Republicans will ever see the light.  After all, they have staked their political revival as a Party on defeating this bill. Moreover, they have so demonized this act of social and economic justice that any showing of surrender – even after full passage of this bill – would be tantamount to bargaining with the devil in the eyes of their zealous and dogmatic supporters.

Hell, Republican politicians have so compromised their political integrity in this respect that they are now spouting in Congress the right-wingnut rubbish that was once relegated to talk radio, including patently absurd chants about Obama being a socialist who is conspiring to take away their freedom. But consider for a moment the implications of their Taliban mentality and Jihad rhetoric: since they can’t blame Obama for the passage of this bill, Republicans are effectively accusing every Democrat who voted to help these poor, uninsured Americans of destroying the country and inciting a war of Armageddon….

Never mind that Obama and the Democrats are only doing what Jesus commanded all Christians to do:

Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You?

Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.

(Mathew 25:37-41)

Moreover, as Obama lamented, one wonders why common sense hasn’t compelled Republicans to appreciate the moral and economic imperative of implementing comprehensive healthcare reform. And if you believe their claims about wanting to scratch what they’ve caricatured as “Obamacare” to find a better plan, then you probably still believe that American soldiers will find WMDs in Iraq.

Then again, these are the same Republicans who blithely praised (as divinely inspired) Bush’s decision to spend over one trillion dollars (not to mention the wasted lives) on that wild-goose chase in Iraq; but who are now rabidly condemning (as an act of treason) Obama’s decision to spend much less than that on health insurance coverage for their fellow Americans.

Frankly, nothing demonstrated the myopic and self-serving nature of opposition to this bill quite like the way Republicans waxed indignant about what the American people wanted, and what the American people would do if they did not get it.

Because, by their logic, instead of leading his people in accepting God’s Ten Commandments, Moses would have left the tablets shattered in pieces and led them in worshiping the golden calf. After all, that was what the people wanted, no…?

Well, thank God that Obama emulated Moses by leading instead of being led. In so doing he has delivered healthcare reform to America and vindicated the transformative nature of his presidency.

Indeed, that Republican and Democratic presidents alike, including JFK and Richard Nixon, have tried and failed over the past 100 years to sign similar legislation is an undeniable testament to his historic achievement. Alas, there’s also no denying that much of the violent backlash already sweeping the country is being fueled by racial resentment over the fact that this “uppity” president is the one who finally succeeded.

Meanwhile, like Japanese Kamikazes who kept fighting after the war was lost, Republicans are fighting on by making Democrats jump over all kinds of legal and procedural hurdles to fully enact this bill. But these hurdles will only delay the inevitable, and not even they are delusional enough to believe their hollow threats about repealing it.

It is worth noting, however, that these threats are just the latest manifestation of their “all-of-our-ideas-and-none-of-yours” notion of bipartisanship. More to the point, they make plain the political venality, immaturity, and self-righteousness behind their opposition not only to healthcare reform but to Obama’s entire domestic agenda.

All the same, here’s to Obama for finally offering American citizens what leaders of every other developed country began offering their respective citizens generations ago: healthcare, not as a privilege, but as a fundamental right.

That’s CHANGE we can believe in!

* This commentary was published originally yesterday at 3:20 P.M.