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It’s historic. And it’s over.

What’s amazing is that it took so much vitriol. But change always does. Especially social change.

I need look no farther than my own extended family, where two members with a recent history of cancer, unlikely to ever get insured on their own dime without health care reform because of those pre-existing conditions, vehemently opposed the idea of health care reform. Somehow, they had been persuaded by the right that  it was in their interests to be against the very idea of reforming the health insurance system, ignoring the fact that the health care lobby fought hard and donated big to preserve the status quo.

That’s a position understandable for those safely ensconced in the shelter of a larger corporation who can count on not losing their jobs (whoever they are), or for those on the public payroll who can count on not losing their jobs (another pretty small group, I would think) , but one of these family members was recently laid off, and the other is unable to work and uninsured because of his illness. Yet the ire and bile of the fight was so extreme that they were unable to see their own benefit in health care reform. Instead, they see health care reform as a move toward socialism, as un-American. Even though implementation of health care reform offered direct benefit to both of them, they vehemently opposed it. Many of those in support of health care reform perhaps failed to appreciate the depth of that opposition.

Of course, most of those protesting health care reform had health care coverage. They were the easy ones for the right to fire up. Many of those interviewed at anti-reform rallies were on Medicare (a government plan) or were well-covered by their employer, as are most Americans.

Anyone who thinks our health care system doesn’t need an overhaul hasn’t looked at Washington state’s Basic Health Plan lately. Or visited a clinic like Country Doctor Community Clinic on Capitol Hill, where I was yesterday afternoon.

And anyone on the waiting list for the Basic Health Plan – now bigger than the number actually enrolled – must not have been among those polled to make Washington the seventh happiest state in the country, according to a Gallup Poll. But that’s another story.

About 80,000 people are now waiting to get on Basic Health, the state’s subsidized plan for the working poor. About 65,000 people are currently enrolled in the plan, paying an average of $34 a month, with the state paying the remaining 85 percent of the premiums. Beginning in January, members will pay an average of $60 a month, or 25 percent of the total premium.

Already, budget cuts have forced tens of thousands of people off Basic Health. And because it receives no federal dollars, the program faces even deeper cuts with the $2.6 billion budget gap the state now faces. U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell has inserted an amendment in the Senate health care reform bill that would rescue the plan, but even if that bill passes, the money wouldn’t flow until 2014, Kyung M.