Landmark Health Bill Approved--Nearly

Remember in 2008, when Obama promised a season of change in Washington?

It looks like it might have just begun, blooming with the beginning of spring's cherry blossoms. Just today, the House of Representatives approved the latest health care bill, which stipulates that health insurers allow children to stay on their parents' plans until their 26th birthday, that children with medical problems not be dropped from their family plans, and that many large companies face stiff fines for failing to cover their employees. The bipartisan bickering about passing this bill included a group of conservative Democrats (who are they, I want to know?) who insisted on including a clause clarifying that none of this federal health insurance money go to providing abortions.

Just what does this all mean?

It doesn't mean that getting health care coverage will be instantly easier, nor does it mean that this bill has yet become law. The vote now goes to the Senate. And even if the bill does get passed without hitch, it still might be several months before everyday Americans see real change in their health care coverage.

That said, I can't help fluttering with excitement at the thought that maybe, at some point, so many of the decisions I make in life aren't dictated by who will pay my medical bills, and how. It seems nothing short of ironic that this bill pass just two months shy of my 26th birthday, where for the past three years my family has been generous enough to pay to COBRA my health insurance. Fresh out of college I applied for my own health insurance, but was denied across the board because I have a pre-existing condition. I was offered insurance through my previous job, but didn't work there long enough for the transition between companies to make any real difference.

Now I'm back in school, and the CSU system (when faced with enough budget cuts to knock it to its knees) offers a laughable $500 reimbursement for insulin...per year. (Any diabetic reading this knows that one vial of insulin has a retail value of $90; as someone on an insulin pump, I go through 3 vials a month--$500 would last me about six weeks.) So - so I'm ridiculously lucky that my parents are able to help me out, but I'm damned well ready to help myself out, or to let the government throw me and my fellow pre-existing-conditioners a bone.

Harry Reid, you listening? Blue Cross? HealthNet? Aetna? Kaiser? Big business? Weak-kneed Democrats in the Senate, Republicans and Independents who don't know enough diabetics or asthmatics or recent college grads foregoing health insurance--I hope you're paying attention.

I hope you're all paying attention, because the rest of us everyday Americans, we certainly are.

O. Bama.

Tonight I ran the streets of San Francisco banging pots and pans, drinking champagne and yelling joyfully into open cafes and bars. Tonight I felt proud, actually, honestly proud, to be from the United States, for the first time since I was in elementary school.

It started after work, when I ran home to pea soup and NPR, and I heard the commentator noting that "many of those contested red states are turning a shade of blue." And then Ohio. Oh, Ohio. Obama and his campaign took Ohio. And then Pennsylvania. And Virginia. And so many more, until at long last, it was eight o'clock and the projections were suddenly not so projected. Obama: 323. McCain: 144. No hanging chads could destroy that landslide.

I was sitting in a friend's living room in the Mission, surrounded by twenty young progressives with open laptops and powerful lungs. The milisecond we knew, the minute it was true, the room was humid with tears. It was a reaction I didn't realize politics could provoke, transforming a group of high-energy, highly expectant voters into a quiet, weeping mass.

McCain folded like a stack of cards. He was dignified enough, putting his arms up above his head in that universally-recognized symbol of almost Democratic surrender. And then, after he seceded, and Palin waved her Miss Congeniality wave from the side of the stage, it all became so much more real.

Obama took over Chicago with three words: Yes we can. His rhetoric is impossible to beat, and his delivery is perfect. Even the tone of his voice is sympathetic, measured. The following phrase is what broke me down completely, gave me over to a new form of optimistic patriotism:

"Our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand."

And thus we took to the streets, feeling an almost Biblical pull, like Miriam with her tambourine. We shouted and screamed "O - BA - MA!" and kept pinching each other and running into cafes with our arms up high, surrounded by smiles and fellow chanters. The world feels new suddenly. Faith is palpable. Authority welcomes debate. Humanity is recognizable. American dignity is not an oxymoron.

I won't rattle off Obama's policy promises, although they are attractive (yes to health care for those of us with pre-existing conditions! and pro-choice education! and a quicker retreat from Iraq!), but perhaps more than anything is this injection of renewal that you can feel in the very earth. The days seem clearer suddenly. Grad school seems a little bit more attainable. Small, measurable gains seem possible.

And besides, who cannot love a president who says things like this:

"Sasha and Malia, I love you both so much, and you have earned the new puppy that's coming with us to the White House."

Finally, a leader who's funny on purpose.