Despite Strong Public Opposition, House Dems Narrowly Pass Health Care Reform

With just a two vote margin, House Democrats last night passed the most massive government intrusion into the lives and freedoms of Americans in this country’s history. The Health Care Reform Bill was passed pretty much along party lines, with just one Republican voting for the legislation, and 39 Democrats voting against its passage.

The rare weekend session was highlighted by a visit from President Obama to urge on his fellow Democrats and numerous outcries on both sides of the aisle in the course of bringing the bill to a final vote. The bill now awaits the Senate’s resolution of its own competing bills before any final details are worked out in conference between the two houses of Congress.

While the House Democrats will certainly tout their narrow victory, there is no guarantee that the Senate will be successful in crafting a final bill before the end of this year and perhaps not even next year. The problem for most Democrat legislators, in both the House and Senate, is that this particular health care reform legislation is unpopular with a majority of voters in their home districts or states.

Already weary from deficit-busting legislation like the ineffective Stimulus Bill, Omnibus Budge, and Cap and Trade Bill, voters have been expressing their displeasure with this Congress’s free-spending of their tax dollars since mid-July at town hall meetings and marches on Washington. It’s clear that Speaker of the House Nancy PelosiNancy Pelosi’s decision to ignore the wishes of a majority of American people will cost the Democrats at the ballot box in the 2010 mid-term elections, and may even cost her her Speaker title.