It's more interesting that there's a 60% Democratic majority in both houses and yet this bill just barely passed with only 1 vote more than the minimum necessary.

As an outsider (Irish) I find it interesting that this occurred. Usually at least one backbencher in Ireland would support the opposing view based on their own such morales. Was this down to pressure from their own party, their constituency or just pure spite to derail something that was not their own idea in the first place?

I'm not pro/against the issue; I have no stake in US healthcare.

There's also the possibility that they believe it's bad legislation. And the the democrats voted for it as a partisan measure.

Just throwing that out there.

I've never understood why it's only the opposition that can be partisan and not the majority.

it was party, based on what they saw as a far-right "grassroots movement" called the Tea Party. they chose the strategy to completely go against democrats to try to deprive them of any victories, in order to keep the population angry ("congress can't do shit in the worst economy since the great depression") and use that anger to sling shot back into majority control

the funny thing is the Tea Party is partly artificial

it will be interesting to see how this plays out for the rest of the year, especially when people notice that massive balls of communist fire aren't raining down on the nation

The Democrats could pass it alone. They didn't want to because they don't want to be accountable for this clusterfuck.