The house passed their health care reform bill tonight.  240 to 194 (edit:  220 to 215).  It seems like (aside from all the republicans (but one) refusing to vote for it) the main sticking point was abortion funding.  Even though the verbage of the bill said it wouldn't be covered, people complaned about loopholes allowing public option money to be used for abortions.  As a result, many anti abortion democrats voted against it.

It seems like most of the vehement opposition to the bill is speculation or just plain silly.  Whether or not it's a "government take over" is pretty unclear.  I'm sure I'll have a bunch of people in here explaining how it's inevitable, but it's just speculation.  Cutting medicare or costing America more jobs just seems silly to me.  I keep thinking of the South Park line "they took errr jobs!"

With all the fear mongering, I never expected any bill with a public option to pass the House.  Let's see the Senate's bill.  Then that needs to be voted on.  Then if it passes, the two need to be reconciled.  Then the final bill needs to be voted on.

All you guys who're going to lose their mind on me in comments and one star the blog, tell me this:  Why are we the only civilized country on Earth not to have their government involved in health care at all.  If it's such a debacle, why aren't France, England, Australia, and all the other non-third world countries not experiencing their apocalypse?  What have you seen that's so great about insurance companies and why don't you want some other path to being insured?  If the bill explicitely states that private money in the form of premiums will be used to fund it, why does everybody use the language that it's "free health care" and it's all going to come from increased taxes?