Senate Removes Obamacare Defunding

Despite Ted Cruz talking for 21 hours, the Senate voted for closure 79-19 and passed a spending bill to avoid a government shutdown without the controversial attempt to defund Obamacare by 100-0.

Yes, Virginia, you read that right, even Ted Cruz voted for it.

The bill now goes back to the House where John Boehner will face the headache of what to do with it.

With the Exchanges ready to open in 33 states (17 have decided NOT to fund them) defunding the program now would be like dropping a brick wall in front of a speeding train.

Of course it's quite possible the train is heading for a brick wall anyway.

It's still too early to tell how much confusion and chaos this bill is going to cause but you can be pretty sure the Republican generate bullshit machine will be out in force exaggerating every little problem.

Assuming health care reform can survive the first two or three years, I suspect that it will become as widely accepted as Social Security or Medicare because, in the final analysis, its biggest fault is that it didn't go far enough.