Leading article: A victory that may come to define the Obama presidency.

I was pleased reading yesterday's Independent editorial, that they have come to the same conclusion as I have regarding Obama's healthcare bill.

They begin by admitting that it does not give everything that progressives like myself might want:

For left-wing Democrats, abandonment of the so-called public option, the direct provision by the state of health insurance for the poor, is a bitter pill.

That is almost certainly a lost cause now, a casualty of a savage Senate battle against resurgent Republicans who closed ranks against Obama's supposedly "socialist" health reforms with frantic and, at times, disconcerting zeal.

But they ask that we not allow that disappointment to blind us to the scale of the achievement he is on the brink of pulling off:

Nevertheless, we should not lose ourselves in all the details about messy compromises, and so miss the vital significance of what Mr Obama is tantalisingly close to achieving. The President is surely right to assert that most of a loaf is better than no loaf at all, and to describe his health reform package as the most important item of social policy in America since the 1930s.

Tens of millions of poor Americans who have been denied healthcare cover in the past can in all likelihood look forward quite soon to a day when they will be able to face the prospect of illness with a little more equanimity than they do now. Under the new bill, most people who are not currently covered by Medicaid – the existing federal and state-funded insurance scheme for those on low incomes – will either have access to it, or will receive subsidies to obtain health insurance elsewhere. Businesses will be obliged to offer coverage to their employees. The number of potential beneficiaries of these changes is huge, and could affect the lives of more than 30 million people.

Democratic presidents and politicians since the era of Teddy Roosevelt have fought and lost battles to set up a comprehensive national system of health insurance for Americans – a system that would benefit the many, not just the few. The Clintons tried their hand at this and failed. If Mr Obama closes this deal, he has a chance to earn a place in American history as a great reformer.

The Democrats have spent seventy years attempting to change America's utterly unfair health system and it would be churlish to deride Obama's achievement simply because he did not manage to bring home the entire loaf.

Progress in these matters is rarely achieved in one giant step, much as we would like that to be so, but Obama has taken a very large step in the right direction.

Until the Democrats tackle the problem of the blue dogs in their midst then proper universal healthcare will always be beyond their grasp.

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Tags: Obama, universal healthcare