After a year of rancorous debate, Congress has given its blessing to the final health care reform bill. As expected, the reconciliation fixes to the $940 billion package received exactly zero Republican votes, passing the House 220 to 207 and 56 to 43 in the Senate.
In theory, the born-again deficit virgins of the GOP should also have been happy. After all, the CBO forecasts the final health care bill for less than half the cost of the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts will slash the deficit by $130 billion over the first decade and $1.3 trillion over 20 years. As Steny Hoyer (D-MD) put it, "We think it will post the largest deficit reduction of any bill that we've adopted in the Congress since 1993."
Of course, every single Republican in the House and Senate voted against that Clinton deficit reduction legislation, too. For more history on the GOP's one-way street, see "Bipartisanship's Willing Executioners."
