My circuitous path to Cornell included two-year stops at the U.S. Naval Academy and the Island of Borneo, where I served as a Mormon missionary. My cocktail hour inquisitors often focus their questions on the discipline and adventure of that period in my life. They want to explore the differences between Cornell and life in uniform — military or priestly. What was basic training like? How about the guns? Did you meet a headhunter? (In order: awful, awesome and I think so, but Borneo is the same as America in at least one way … you don’t just ask a guy if he’s a killer.)

While the health care plan that passed in the House on Saturday elicited mass celebration amongst advocates of health care reform, for a largely voiceless group of Americans — namely, low-income women — this historic bill hardly signifies a “courageous vote,” as President Obama suggests.

With President Obama’s confident rhetoric, a pep rally for doctors at the White House on Monday, and a Senate vote on the horizon, health care reform seems more imminent than ever. The rising cost of health care, the aging population, and a newly formed White House Office of Health Reform may be structural factors contributing to the likelihood of the reform. However, it is far from the first time that politicians have sold the American Public on the idea of impending reform to the American Public.

And despite bold proposals dating 75 Years, comprehensive reform has never happened.