As USA Today reports, it will take years to sort out the winners and losers among consumers, insurers and health care providers following last night’s historic 219-202 vote in the House of Representatives on a health care bill that first and foremost will cover an additional 32 million Americans by expanding Medicaid and providing federal subsidies.

Among the biggest supporters for the legislation is Tampa Democrat Kathy Castor, who issued a statement late last night that said,

“We can expect transformational reform from these bills.  Access to health care will be extended to all Americans.  Mechanisms to control rising costs will be put in place.  And the marketplace will be expanded and safeguards put in place to protect consumers.

“Truly, this legislation is monumental, historic and transforming.

“Today we took the critical step in dealing with the current health care crisis.  Tomorrow, many Americans will wake up to a new week and a new future that looks a great deal more promising.”

Progressive journalists are hailing President Obama this morning in the wake of the legislation passing, with New Republic scribe and health care aficionado Jonathan Chalit offering that Barack Obama has”sealed his reputation as a president of great historical import.”  Calling it a staggering political achievement, Chalit writes that historians will view the bill as a masterfully crafted piece of legislation, writing:

… Obama and the Democrats managed to bring together most of the stakeholders and every single Senator in their party. The new law law untangles the dysfunctionalities of the individual insurance market while fulfilling the political imperative of leaving the employer-provided system in place. .. Health care experts for decades have bemoaned the impossibility of such reforms—the system is wasteful, but the very waste creates a powerful constituency for the status quo. Finally, the Democrats have begun to untangle the Gordian knot. It’s a staggering political task and substantive achievement.

Mind you, these efforts come as the most progressive members of his Democratic Party were unhappy from the beginning of this year long debate, after Obama took single-payer off the table.  A Government run public option was also jettisoned, which for many liberals was a bridge too far gone.  Yet those progressives in Congress, like Dennis Kucinich, thought it wasn’t worthy killing the entire enterprise by not having that option included.

This article appears in Mar 17-23, 2010.