On Saturday, by a vote of 220-215 with the support of just one Republican, House Democrats passed their version of health care reform, a $1.3 trillion (and that will be too low, and just for the first decade) monstrosity of taxes, penalties, bureaucracies, and European-style socialism that will, if it ever actual takes effect, destroy both the American economy and its health care system.

It’s almost amusing to see so many of the Democrats’ photo-op pictures showing California’s George Miller standing with Nancy Pelosi.  Miller could easily be the worst member of Congress, absolutely owned by labor unions.  That’s whose bill just got passed, despite the tax on “Cadillac plans” which unions oppose.

I felt sick to my stomach when I read the news of the bill’s passage.  That said, I remind myself of my own statements that we are living “Atlas Shrugged” and things will not get better until the public – who too often want everything for free – realize that their dreams of gifts from government forever are fatally flawed.  The public must come to learn, and they can probably only truly learn it if the lesson is very painful, that “free” things from government are poisonous fruit, the most important result of which will be the loss of their ability to gain decent employment.

I think the House bill will be dramatically modified in conference if a bill gets through the Senate, which is a 50/50 proposition at best right now.  Certainly, no bill with a public option will pass the Senate.  However, the fact that such a leftist bill passed the House will put pressure on Senate conferees to move left…a fact which could cement the no votes of the one or two or three moderate Democrats in the Senate (plus Olympia Snowe) whom we are sadly reliant on to save the nation.

Don’t forget, the House is a much more radical place than the Senate, and it happens frequently that the worst ideas do get passed the the House.  (For example, they’ve also already passed a cap-and-trade bill that probably won’t get passed in the Senate either.)

Furthermore, the Democrats had to get something passed or risk their Messiah, The One, becoming a lame duck earlier than any president in US history.  With luck, he still will, if Harry Reid is unable to bully Senate Democrats the way Pelosi was able to with House Democrats.

Let’s give the American people some time to digest what’s just happened in the House, and particularly the votes of any Blue Dog Democrats who caved in to the Pelosi pressure.

The good news, if one felt compelled to find a silver lining in this extremely dark cloud, is that it probably means massive Democratic losses in elections a year from now.  (Indeed, the reason Pelosi pushed for such a fast vote was because the thought of losing the next election will become ever more intense among Democratic “moderates” in coming months.)  I have been been betting on Republicans taking back the majority in the 2010 elections, roughly risking $3 to win $7 with each “contract” I trade.

I would like to see 50 Republican candidates running on a platform of co-sponsoring a bill which would simply repeal any health care “reform” that passes before the next election.  Obviously, no repeal can happen while Obama is President, but it would send an extremely strong message.

Make no mistake, we are in a war against domestic socialism every bit as much as we’re in a war against radical Islam.  And just like in the war with Islam, every once in a while you will find American fanatics doing terrible things to other Americans.  That’s what happened at Fort Hood earlier last week and, in a much subtler but more pernicious way, that’s what happened in the House of Representatives on Saturday.  May history judge them similarly.