TPM Reader BK disagrees that health care reform's greatest vulnerability will be the 2010 election.

Actually, its greatest point of vulnerability will be the 2012 election, since much of it doesn't take effect until 2013. The mandates that will drive up costs will take effect before then--young people will pay much more since premiums will be equalized for all age groups and private companies will have to cover even sick people. Since there will be no opt-out or no competition, they will be able to charge whatever they want.

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There are many events in life that, while more or less predictable in themselves (House passage of the health care bill), turn out to have an impact and significance that is only truly apparent after they occur. The passage of the House health care reform bill last night strikes me as one of them.

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Read it here.

House passes Dem health care bill by a vote of 220 to 215.

One Republican voted for the Democratic bill: Rep. Anh "Joseph" Cao (R-LA). See this post from earlier this evening on the background to his vote. Here's Cao's statement on his vote.

Late Update: Here's the roll call on the final vote. And for those keeping score at home here's the roll call on the Stupak abortion amendment.

218 for; only one Dem yet to vote.

Late Update: We have one GOP vote for -- presumably that's Rep. Cao (R-LA), though no confirmation on that yet.

The final vote appears to be 220 - 215.

10:58 PM: With amendments and procedural mumbojumbo out of the way, the actual vote is about to get underway.

11:01 PM: Not too much to talk about on a final vote live blog. Currently at 196 for, 29 Dems voting against.

11:03 PM: Currently ten more votes needed and 14 Dems still to vote. Presumably they're going to do this on a straight 218, just like in the Clinton years. No 'wasted' votes.

GOP alternative amendment (i.e., the House GOP's bill) goes down to defeat 258-176.

Late Update: Rep. Tim Johnson (R-IL) was the sole Republican to vote against the Boehner bill. No one seem really clear as to what his reasoning was. As I noted below, Rep. Cao (R-LA) is the only member of the Republican caucus believed to be in play. And he voted for it, though in a high stakes case like this it would not be surprising to see him vote for both.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) ...

I wonder if Michele Bachmann wearing a lei (on the Floor) means she has recognized that Hawaii is a state and President Obama is a citizen?

Scenes from today's debate that you really just have to see. Video after the jump.

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Roll Call reports that the House Dems may be able to pick up one Republican vote for the health care bill: Rep. Anh "Joseph" Cao (R-La.) A former Jesuit seminarian, the Dems move to allow a vote on the pro-life "Stupak amendment" appears to have been key for Cao.

But also remember Cao's political position.

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Video:House debates health reform bill.

Pelosi emerges from caucus meeting confident that House bill will pass tonight.

On the one hand it seems funny that a bunch of GOP Reps. would blow off a vote to strengthen the Patriot Act so they could hang out and speak at Michele Bachmann's Capitol Hill tea party event. On the other hand, since you have Republicans saying health care reform is a bigger threat than terrorism, maybe the whole thing makes sense?

Is it appropriate for Tea Partiers to use images of concentration camp victims to illustrate the horrors of health care reform? "You bet," says former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO).

Late Update: I went back watched the video in question several times. And though Tancredo said "you bet" to the "appropriate" question, it seems to me that he got confused in the cross-talk between him and the interviewer David Shuster. In context, I think Tancredo meant to say it was inappropriate, in other words, the opposite. The perils of live smash-mouth television. Don't worry. Tancredo said lots of other crazy stuff. But I don't think he meant to say this was okay.

How did Michele Bachmann's Tea Party extravaganza end up being embraced by the whole House GOP House conference? Find out here.