Final Post

This afternoon the Senate approved a slightly modified reconciliation bill, and tonight the House voted for that modified bill. The legislative battle for health care is over, and it has ended with a historic victory that will take its place with the passage of the great New Deal initiatives, the civil rights act, Medicare and Medicaid, and perhaps a few others. It will mark this President and this Congress as leaders who were able to address a seemingly overwhelming problem that Presidents and Congresses going back a century were unable to resolve. And it shows that the country's elected leaders--Democratic leaders--are still able to accomplish big things, even in the face of an implacable and utterly uncompromising opposition.

So it is under these happy circumstances (which were very uncertain a few weeks ago) that this final posting on this blog is submitted. When we started 206 posts ago, we had no idea that this legislation would take seven months to pass. As we glance back over the posts of these contentious months, we see a loose chronicle of the ebb and flow of issues, controversies, tactics, and personalities that have comprised the campaign. We'll continue to leave the blog up for several more weeks for anyone who might want to meander through this informal record.

Thanks to the Tippecanoe Democratic Party for its support of this effort and to those who have followed this story with us.