Pushing for universal health care is the family business for Congressman John Dingell of Michigan. During the 1940s, his father, John Dingell Sr., sponsored the Dingell-Wagner-Murray bill, widely considered the first formal proposal for national health insurance. Today the son delivered one of the day's best lines, one that sent a message to skeptics on both the right and the left:
..the last perfect legislation was the Ten Commandments. This bill isn’t perfect, but it is a giant leap forward. Social Security and Medicare were not perfect when we passed those bills either, but we improved on those laws over time and they have been tremendously successful. We need to act now.