Jingle bells

The US Senate gave us all a nice Christmas present today, and let's hope we won't need to return it after the holidays. The perfect is the enemy of the good, and there is a lot to celebrate in the Senate version of health care reform.

Other social insurance initiatives such as Social Security and Medicare were tweaked and amended many times into their present-day forms, and this reform faces years of modifications, perhaps an 'eternity' of re-molding. After all, when Social Security was introduced, the US was still a largely agrarian nation with a different wage and salary infrastructure. It's had to adapt to new circumstances.

Health care reform will have to respond to the needs of a rapidly changing American demography---more Hispanic, more urban, more service sector jobs and less industrial etc etc. So there's more work ahead, but progressives can take comfort in the knowledge that the federal government has driven a large stake in the ground by treating health care for all as a national, public sector challenge and not just an outcome of unbridled capitalism. How cool is that !?!

Enjoy the holiday and stay tuned to BobOnARoll....