Nash on the first anniversary of health care reform.

There are several answers to Matt's questions below. Much of the problem always has been the crass materialism that has come to define the American experience; dollars invested in human happiness may not be available to purchase vital plastic trinkets from overseas manufacturers. Infinity beckons, but all we want are our toys, and society does not exist outside the walls of the gated community.

To me, it's always gone even deeper than money, into aberrant psychology. What Americans crave more than anything else is their "right," one irrespective of comparative circumstance or variable station, to find someone (anyone will do) "lower" than themselves, and to heap abuse on these convenient victims by means of this lofty phrase: "After all, it's your own fault. Why should I pay to help you?"

But what about unhealthy children? Is it their fault, too? Or, is it enough to blame their parents and allow the guilt to trickle down to the powerless?

Worse yet, the main offenders tend always to explain their derision by reference to Christianity, which in turn exalts wealth as the condition preferred by Jesus, and permits personal greed to be thinly disguised as a theological condition whereby the believer condemns the sick to Hell for harboring illness.

Since when is good health not precondition for the pursuit of happiness?

Apparently I've forgotten the modern American's creed: "Life is good, but not on my dime."

Anyone know a cheap faith healer?

NASH: A year of health care reform

... Why are so many lawmakers concerned with the repeal of this legislation without any concerns for those that are benefiting from it? Why are they not concerned for the health of this nation that falls behind on many key statistics except for the actual money that is spent on health care?

Today's featured Tribune letter: "Is money the only reason they practice medicine?"

Read retired physician Ed Ryan's thoughts, and envision Healthblogger sipping tea in a tricornered hat.

Frank Rich on the "national existential reordering."

On the same day that my former personal physician merrily foams at the mouth in the Tribune, one of the most insightful of mainstream pundits charts the dimensions of white, tea-bagging America's feverish demons. Perhaps the only question now is whether they'll secede before or after the inevitable, and whether the sensible among us should even give a damn.

The Rage Is Not About Health Care, by Frank Rich (New York Times).

... If Obama’s first legislative priority had been immigration or financial reform or climate change, we would have seen the same trajectory. The conjunction of a black president and a female speaker of the House — topped off by a wise Latina on the Supreme Court and a powerful gay Congressional committee chairman — would sow fears of disenfranchisement among a dwindling and threatened minority in the country no matter what policies were in play. It’s not happenstance that Frank, Lewis and Cleaver — none of them major Democratic players in the health care push — received a major share of last weekend’s abuse. When you hear demonstrators chant the slogan “Take our country back!,” these are the people they want to take the country back from.

They can’t. Demographics are avatars of a change bigger than any bill contemplated by Obama or Congress. The week before the health care vote, The Times reported that births to Asian, black and Hispanic women accounted for 48 percent of all births in America in the 12 months ending in July 2008. By 2012, the next presidential election year, non-Hispanic white births will be in the minority. The Tea Party movement is virtually all white. The Republicans haven’t had a single African-American in the Senate or the House since 2003 and have had only three in total since 1935. Their anxieties about a rapidly changing America are well-grounded.

"Sometimes one had to wonder why some of these people are Democrats in the first place."

As we await Healthblogger's impending exodus to Paraguay and occupancy of the late General Stroessner's idyll in Little Nurnberg, here is lucid commentary on last night's health care vote.

Verily: Anything so good and proper that every last Republican voted against it probably should have been even more radical than it was, and if certain quasi-Democrats weren't so cowardly and unprincipled, it would have been. But it's a step in the left direction. The Congressional fallout will be less than expected, and President Obama likely has assured his re-election in 2012. I imagine Travis Hankins will secede from the Union.

Perhaps there is room at Alfredo's. Shall we pack the Courtesy Bus?

Healthcare vote: Barack Obama passes US health reform by narrow margin, by Michael Tomasky (Guardian Daily).

It did not, you may have noticed, come easily. The Democrats pulled it out in the end, but they – especially the Democrats in Congress – behaved abominably throughout this process. Dozens of Democrats – mostly moderates, but a few on the left, too – acted more like members of a small-town city council considering a zoning application than legislators considering one of the most momentous votes in recent American history. And while it's certainly true that a "yea" vote last night will prove to be a risky one for some members, and will cost a few of them their jobs, even that reality is no justification for the preening and fretting we've witnessed in these recent weeks, weeks they could and should have spent promoting the bill.

Sometimes one had to wonder why some of these people are Democrats in the first place.

Today's Tribune column: "Doctor, it hurts when you do that."

Well, then -- don't do that.

BAYLOR: Doctor, it hurts when you do that

“My doctor is opposed to health care reform?”

“Oh, yes, very much so. Other doctors play golf or invest in the market for recreation, but Dr. Oakengruber would rather protest against the liberal elites who are not representing the American people as the Founders intended.”

Krugman: "Europe’s economic success should be obvious even without statistics."

I'm in the process of developing a new, recurring character for my Thursday Tribune column. His name is Oakengruber. He's a doctor, reads a publication called the Wall Beck Journal, opposes the ungodly curse of Obamunism, patronizes certain downtown antique stores, and ... well, just stay tuned to see what happens when the Publican has his gout toe examined.

In the interim, as American fights for the right to be dim, here's a welcomed corrective to the teabagging blather. As for me, I'm going for a bicycle ride.

Learning From Europe, by Paul Krugman (New York Times).

As health care reform nears the finish line, there is much wailing and rending of garments among conservatives. And I’m not just talking about the tea partiers. Even calmer conservatives have been issuing dire warnings that Obamacare will turn America into a European-style social democracy. And everyone knows that Europe has lost all its economic dynamism.

Strange to say, however, what everyone knows isn’t true.