Sorry, no RIP yet for the health care reform legislation

It’s fine to celebrate the Massachusetts victory of Scott Brown. I like how Daily Show host Jon Stewart put it: “The Kennedy legacy goes down to a naked guy who owns a truck.” (He once posed for Cosmopolitan.)

But remember from civics class that the legislation only need 51 votes to pass (technically 50, with Biden as tie-braker) and all Brown’s win does is allow a filibuster with one vote to spare. And as the Washington Post’s Steven Pearlstein writes today:

There is very little in the latest version of the health-care bill that Maine’s two Republican senators haven’t supported in the past or couldn’t support in the future. In succumbing to the intense social and political pressure from their caucus, both Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins flunked the leadership test last year. Massachusetts has now given them a second chance to redeem their reputations and political fortunes in a state that has always valued independence over party loyalty.

So here’s to the naked truckdriver, but we need to continue to get the word out on the need for health care reform but the terrible problems with the legislation that the Democrats are trying to foist upon us.