After a long, hard, bloody, awful debate that brought out the worst in our national conversation, the Democratic health care package just passed by a House vote of 220-215. An anti-abortion federal funding amendment sealed the deal. So: now what?

I don't know. The lone Republican "Yea" vote for the bill was Joseph Cao of Louisiana, you know he's gonna get trashcanned after school on Monday. Great, the Democrats made a huge-ass compromise for the Republican moral majority, I wonder what the Freakonomics guys will have to say about it, but you can bet your ass pro-choice activists are pissed. Meanwhile, the TVs gonna be filled with lots of talking heads tomorrow, many of whom will tell you how utterly fucked this country is, like this guy. People will be mad and people will be sad, and people will be happy and people will be elated, and people get their pockets lined.

And maybe, just maybe, one day, some parent with a kid who's got a bad fever in the middle of the night won't have to worry about taking him in to get checked out because they can't afford it or they'll get treated like shit, they'll just do it. And it'll be fine.

Eh. Big dreams. Was that even covered in the package? I don't know. Yay. Health Care, I guess.