Painful Changes in Society Eased Passage of Bold Safety Net Measure
The New York Times
President Barack Obama barely muscled his health law through the House. But income inequality, economic stagnation and a pandemic propelled an even more ambitious bill.
WASHINGTON — In March 2010, with Tea Party activists protesting loudly in the hallways of Capitol Hill and the political wind in their faces, 34 House Democrats — including Representative Stephen F. Lynch of Massachusetts — broke with their president to vote against passage of the Affordable Care Act.
It was not enough to kill the bill, but more than enough to register deep concerns about its reach in American society — and its potential impact on the midterm elections.
On Friday, Mr. Lynch and every other Democrat but one cast votes for about $2 trillion in spending on social welfare and climate change programs that arguably go much farther than the health law — farther, in fact, than any government intervention in half a century. And the concerns that peeled so many Democrats away from the health measure more than a decade ago were hardly in evidence — at least on their side of the aisle.
