After a year of passionate and often acrimonious debate about how to improve health care coverage for millions of Americans, it's too much to ask that heightened emotions and strong convictions about the issue go away overnight.
The House passed a Senate-approved version of health care legislation Sunday, sending it to President Barack Obama for his signature.
The debate will go on, if for no other reason than Republicans, on the losing side of the 219-212 House vote, will want to keep it alive as a campaign issue in November's elections.
Still, some fever-pitch elements of the arguments before, during and after Sunday's House debate should not be repeated.
Those elements include the shameful behavior of some demonstrators outside the Capitol and an entirely improper comment shouted from the House floor.
And they include a pledge from Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott to sink the state into a federal lawsuit aimed at blocking the bill from going into effect.
The Associated Press reported that demonstrators on Saturday hurled an anti-gay slur at Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., and chanted a racial epithet at Reps. Andre Carson, D-Ind., and John Lewis, D-Ga., and that a demonstrator spat on Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo.
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