If Obama's election night was a rising up of America's better nature, his triumph in healthcare reform was a victory after years of Republican obstructionism. Ours is an essentially good-hearted nation, but so deeply divided that wedge issues can decide a campaign outcome. When I've blogged in favour of universal healthcare, I've been stunned not so much by the vitriol of comments against it, but by the ignorance. The same lies and wild rumours, gleaned from far-right sites, are repeated mindlessly.

I spent months between 2006 and 2009 in hospitals receiving treatment for cancer of the mandible. I had four scheduled surgeries, several emergency surgeries, and went through four physical rehabilitations after tissue was moved here and there on my poor harvested frame. I received excellent care. I had good employer health insurance. Otherwise we would have been wiped out. None but the very rich can afford to get seriously ill in America and hope to pay for it themselves.

Yet opponents of reform were selfish: why should they pay for those too stupid, lazy, etc, to provide for themselves? They feared government would control healthcare. What did they think insurance companies were doing? The day of the vote was surrealistic, exposing the unwholesome underpinnings of the anti-Obama Tea Party movement. Forming a gauntlet for congressmen to run, demonstrators shouted the n-word and spat at black congressmen. I doubt Sarah Palin will choose to speak at their next convention.

Now Republicans face the destruction of their party over their stonewalling against reform. Bush's speechwriter David Frum blogged: "It's hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the disaster. We followed the most radical voices in the party, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat. "

Those radical voices coined the term "Obamacare." So it will long be known.