The upper house of the U.S. Congress pushed through its own version of a healthcare reform bill on Thursday.

Cleanly divided along partisan lines, the bill that promises to deliver healthcare coverage to some 31 million uninsured Americans is reportedly somewhat less expansive that its House-version counterpart with which it will eventually have to be reconciled.

President Obama, who staked large sums of his now waning political capital on the bill, warily praised the bill as “real and meaningful,” saying that it brings the nation a step closer “the end of a nearly century-long struggle to reform America’s health care system.”

The President also referred to the bill as the most important piece of social legislation since the Social Security Act of 1935.

The battle over the final version of the bill is set to begin in January after the holiday recess, when Congressmen from both houses will begin the tough and dirty work of consolidating the two massive legislative tomes.

According to some commentators, the American public should brace itself for a great deal of sordid political wrangling and favor-trading during the piecemeal bill-merging process—the likes of which they were already given a foretaste during the Senate and House deliberations.

One of the greatest rubbing points between the two versions of the bill is destined to be the much-discussed public option which is still present in the House version but was nixed early on in Senate deliberations.

The question of how the reform should be financed also promises to spawn a great deal of political strife.  The Congressional Budget Office has optimistically calculated that the Senate version of the bill could cut the federal deficit by $132 billion over 10 years—a figure that some independent analysts have derided as a pipe dream.

If both houses are able to agree on a final version of the bill—a process that could easily go sour if but one or two Democrats should choose to defect—it will then be placed on President Obama’s desk for a signature, after which it will become law.

“With today’s vote, we are now incredibly close to making health insurance reform a reality in this country,” stated the President after the announcement of the Senate’s vote.

Like the House version, the Senate bill passed on a razor-thin margin, with 58 Democrats and two independents voting for it in the face of unanimous Republican opposition.

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who has been a tireless advocate of the bill, was exultant, calling its passage a “victory for the American people,” and adding that “every step of this long process has been an enormous undertaking.”

Senate Republicans have not, however, resigned themselves to the results of the highly politicized vote.

Senator Mitch McConnell told reporters at a press conference that, “The fight is long from over,” claiming that he and his Republican colleagues would “work to stop this bill from becoming law.”

Republicans have attacked the legislation on the grounds of its costs as well as its authoritarian mandate that millions of Americans must purchase healthcare whether they want it or not.

The bill will also require private insurers to accept applicants with pre-existing applications, a mandate that many economists say will raise overall premium levels, essentially forcing the healthy members of the population to pick up the tab for others.

In 2007, the United Stated dished out approximately $2.2 trillion—or about 16.2 percent of its GDP—for healthcare.

With healthcare costs soaring, the impetus for healthcare reform has no doubt sprung out of the American ethos in recent years.  There is, however, no consensus amongst the public on just what the nature of that reform ought to be.