MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist:

Well, first of all, the event itself, the only thing more — or as unseemly as the self-congratulatory bus trip to the White House — it was like after you had won an office softball game and you break out the beer — were the Democrats on the House floor taunting bye, bye, bye to Republicans.

This is trivializing a moral issue. And this — to me, that's what health care is, whether in fact it is a right of a citizen in this country to health care. And I think it's a serious question, whether we share our benefits and share our burdens, or whether in fact we're all in this alone.

And what the House passed yesterday was something that just had to be done. I mean, otherwise, you're staring into the abyss of total political failure. Republicans had gone through four elections where the one unanimous position they had all taken as a party was the repeal of Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act.

Sixty-two times, they courageously and boldly voted to do, knowing it didn't count, knowing it wasn't going to go anywhere. The 63rd time was tougher, because what they passed yesterday has serious implications for them politically and certainly for the people of the country.