It took over a year of ferocious debate, numerous changes from its original version, and a 10-hour sitting of Congress on Sunday, but finally the U.S. House voted 219 to 212 to approve a bill that should significantly reform the nation’s healthcare system. This remarkable achievement, which many times appeared a lost cause, is the broadest social reform bill since the approval of Medicare and Medicaid during the Lyndon Johnson Administration in 1966.

Just last January, the quest for national healthcare reform, the most prominent domestic objective of President Barack Obama, seemed defeated when Republican Scott Brown won the late Senator Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat in Massachusetts. Brown’s victory robbed the Democrats of its 60-seat Senate filibuster proof majority. However, little did America realize that Brown’s victory was really a blessing in disguise.

For months an increasing number of Americans called on the president to use his clout, forget bi-partisan approach, and get Congress to approve healthcare reform. Perhaps it was a wakeup call, but with Brown’s victory, Obama and his White House advisors found new wind. Still attempting to get a bi-partisan bill, Obama called a summit of the leaders of both major parties in February, but, predictably, the Republicans refused to cooperate.

It is true that for some, including political leaders, when the going gets tough, the tough get going.

The White House decided to move on and finalized its version of the bill – really the Senate bill, with some new compromises, including those initiated by Republicans.

With the help of the hard-working, deliberate House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the Senate bill was presented to the Democratic majority in the House for its passage. Until Sunday afternoon, there was uncertainty that the 216-majority vote needed to pass the bill would be realized, especially with some Democratic lawmakers opposing to the abortion language, which they thought, permitted federal funding for abortion in the bill. President Obama said he would sign an executive order banning insurance provided under the bill to cover abortion. This was a masterstroke that appeased the dithering lawmakers, virtually guaranteeing he bill’s successful passage.

It is a pity that the days leading up to the bill’s approval held so much bitter rancor by healthcare reform opponents. Images of the demonstrating opponents were eerily reminiscent of those that occurred in the 1960s against civil rights legislation.