Late into the night on Friday, the Energy and Commerce Committee in the House finally passed their health care reform legislation, only after several weeks of markups and making deals with conservative Democrats who were dragging out the debate with opposition to costs and details of the public option.

Despite the long days of debate and compromise, the bill came out nearly identical to the legislation passed out of the other two House committees with jurisdiction over health care reform, the Education and Labor and Ways and Means Committees, who passed their legislation fairly quickly last month.

This sets the stage for merging all three committee bills before a House floor vote when Congress returns from August Recess. Thus far, the House legislation, which includes a public option and affordability components, looks stronger than that of the Senate. The Senate Finance Committee has still not budged on completing their final proposal and are not expected to until after recess.

The August Recess leaves the window wide open for further Conservative and even Moderate opposition, and a strong push back expected from insurance industry lobbyists.

Reform can still be weakened – we have to take action during the recess to ensure that doesn’t happen.

Luckily some members of Congress are calling Republicans on their bluff. Those opposing the public option are using scare tactics that imply a government-run public plan will lead to socialism and “be disastrous”, but Rep. Weiner (D-NY) pointed out that if they wanted to scrap the government-run public option, they might as well get rid of Medicare while they’re at it.  Check it out below -