As Americans digest and debate what happened in the U.S. House of Representatives Sunday night, this much should be clear: Whether you liked the bill or hated it, that part of the discussion is over. It makes sense for everyone to try to make the thing work now.

The shrill “Kill the bill!” mantra no longer applies. The bill is passed. Health care reform will not become President Obama’s Waterloo as many envisioned, and some conservative analysts even wonder if that strategy in some way contributed to their own Waterloo on this bill.

The time for rancid rhetoric from both sides has passed. It is both curious and disturbing that the yearning for good health is something Americans of all political ideologies share, yet for more than a year it has caused great conflict. The strain of that strife was evident in the 1,939-word, 10-point explanation of his vote that U.S. Rep. Brian Baird, D-Vancouver, issued Sunday morning. (View that statement at http://www.columbian.com/news/2010/mar/21/baird-announces-he-will-vote-yes-health-care-bill/.)

Health care reform — the need for which few realistic Americans dispute — is a process. The next step in that process should be a levelheaded review of where the country is today and how we will move on, not how we will sustain feuds and grudges of yore.

To take that higher road, Democrats and Republicans would do well to concentrate on the value of the journey instead of each other’s indecencies. The unrestrained giddiness seen in the Democrats’ televised post-game celebration Sunday night ignored the fact that critical work remains in the unpredictable Senate. Other challenges await in the courts, where the constitutionality of the individual mandate in this reform plan will be challenged. One side will argue that Congress has never required Americans to buy anything, while the other side will counter that Congress has long regulated interstate commerce, and Americans have long been required to pay for Social Security and Medicare. Surely there will be jingoistic bumper stickers to follow but we’re better served with legal issues going before the bench.

For their part, Republicans could recover from this “loss” by not reviewing it as a loss but instead as a step in the process. Vowing to get “even” in November is to ignore the fact that many other pressing issues and many busy months remain. By campaign standards, those months are an eternity. To wit, Sunday night’s fatalistic cries of an “economic Armageddon” were answered no later than Monday by a less-partisan Wall Street. All three leading economic indicators were up, the Dow ascending to an 18-month high with health care shares leading the way. Granted, the fickle stock market is no way to predict our country’s future, but neither is Chicken Little-style prophesying.

Polls have shown repeatedly that — more than anything — American voters want more jobs, a strengthened economy and an end to this infernal recession. Those marches are neither conservative nor liberal. They are American.

Pundits who feed off anger — and there are plenty to fuel the fires of both camps — would love to keep all of us fishing in the river of rancor. But as the best anglers will tell you in times of darkest dormancy, sometimes you just need to cut bait and move on.

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