Collective Conscious

Jonathan Chait said it best today:

Either way, the out­come is a his­toric health care bill.

He’s right. For all the squab­bling over pub­lic options, Medicare and Med­ic­aid expan­sions, trig­gers and opt-​​outs, the truth is that health-​​care reform, as a base bill, is a big deal.

It will pass. It won’t be single-​​payer, but it could be a step in the right direc­tion. Democ­rats aimed high with a full-​​on gov­ern­ment plan, and have nego­ti­ated it down into the realm of polit­i­cal real­ity. If they hadn’t done that, we may not have been able to achieve even  the com­pro­mises that we see today. In that sense, the Democ­rats have a real suc­cess on their hands in terms of health sys­tem reform.

Whether or not the bill is really a step on the road to a true pub­lic option, the thou­sands of pages of insur­ance reforms that made their way into the bill will have real pos­i­tive impacts on the lives of mil­lions of Amer­i­cans. That’s what Obama and the Demo­c­ra­tic Con­gress have to be proud of, and they need to win the com­ing media war — this bill is a suc­cess, and the pub­lic needs to know that by Novem­ber 2010.