It's enough to make you sick, but in a good way. . . .

Around here in the Klamath Basin, it just feels like another beautiful fall day, a Sunday; not much is changing except the weather, which is mixing in more cold and wet days, and next week we should have our first real snow, though not a big one will be my guess. It's so quiet you might think you were deep in the woods and there wasn't another living person within miles.

But really, it’s quite an extraordinary Sunday since last night the house passed health-care reform legislation. Let’s call it landmark. Even one Republican crossed over to vote for it.

From the little I know, it’s not perfect. We should be moving away from employer-provided health care since it puts a burden on American companies when trying to compete with foreign companies from countries where health care isn’t connected to the workplace. Still, a lot will be worked out over the next few years. For now, history has been made which should have been made a generation ago.

Now the Senate has to pass its own version, and a lot could still go wrong there. From what I’m reading and hearing, though, Obama will have a bill on his desk to sign, maybe by Thanksgiving. How appropriate.

Wednesday on PBS, Frontline is rerunning its program “Sick Around the World,” which originally got me thinking so much about all this over a year ago. I hope all our Senators will watch it as they prepare to debate and vote on their package. And I hope even Republicans, elected and not, will watch it. They may react the same way I did, which is to be struck with how uncomplicated reform might be and with how badly we need to do it now.

They might come to understand that full-coverage healthcare with a public option and even a single payer is the moderate position. Socialized medicine means every hospital and clinic belongs to the government and every health care worker, from doctors to LPNs, is a government employee. Socialized medicine works well in some countries, though it probably wouldn’t be a good choice for us, nor is it one that would ever be considered here for a very long time to come. But look to a time in the not-too-distant-future when the teabaggers and other assorted wing-nut loonies are still railing against socialized medicine while they and their families are fully enjoying its benefits.

I wonder if this will be seen as Obama’s great achievement or if he will be seen as having been aloof from the process and mostly an observer.