The Passage of the Senate Health Care Bill, 60-39

“The greatest and richest nation the world has ever known,” said Senator Harry Reid on the floor this morning, will now see an end of the dominance of the “greedy insurance companies.”

“This is just the beginning,” Reid said. “The opponents of this bill have used every trick in the book to delay this day.” (It was, by then, 7:03 a.m., and the vote was already itself just a bit delayed.) “It is regrettable that they choose to view our citizen’s healthcare through a political lens,” he said.

Then at 7:05 the roll was called. Senator Byrd coughed up that his “aye” vote was for Teddy Kennedy. Also, one was unable to tell from C-Span 2 exactly why the Senate cracked up for like 30 seconds when Reid voted, and no one was awake on the Internet to explain.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was, quite obviously, passed. You may go read it now, if you like.