Heathcare, the last, not final, act

This has been a remarkable week. And it is bound to get more exciting the closer we get to the country finally taking more stock of its citizens' access to healthcare. In the end we will have brought maybe another 30 million into the big tent. Not insignificant, but that is how slow progress works. Is there some parallel here with the glacial pace of evolution by natural selection? In the meantime, there will be 20 million left to beg at hospital doors. They are not part of America. They are now the other America.

I was reminded today of the failure to complete that fence at our southern border to stop the illegals from coming North. Don't ask me how to get our heads around illegal immigration. All I know is that the Soviets didn't do very well with their wall in Berlin. Are you going to tell your children "this is how dumb we were when we were adults"?

My father often said to me "I hope that your generation will do better". That did not seem too hard with two World Wars in the rear view mirror. Of course, I only thought about the crime of not stopping the wars from starting in the first place. Now I think mostly about the determination of his generation to face the enemy and to beat evil back. From a historical perspective it seems a small step to make improvements in our healthcare system, although many have tried and failed.

What to think about a country that elects its first African American president with a pretty decisive victory, who then almost from Day 1 gets attacked for being soft on crime, a nazi, a socialist, someone who is out to kill your parents? Didn't it take years before people stood up against the Vietnam War? Ok, a different time, a different situation. But how long did it take for W to be treated like the light weight he is and Chinney to be depicted as the miserable man he seems to be?

Need to stop tomorrow to buy champagne! Finally something controversial will have been achieved because some people were willing to make a decision they believed in. Yeah!!!! One down, 9 to go.