The sun was setting a bright orange-red behind the Statue of Liberty on a recent evening when I visited the newly updated South Ferry terminal in Manhattan. But like the groups of commuters who flocked to the ferry on their way to Staten Island, I wasn’t there for the view.

I had come to corral signatures on a letter in support of health care reform to the Staten Island congressman, Mike McMahon. McMahon was elected last year as a Democrat in this formerly Republican stronghold, and while he’s not on the official roster of the Blue Dogs, he was on the fence about health care.

Follow up:

The organization for which I was canvassing, ACT NOW, gathered more than 800 letters in support of health care reform from McMahon’s constituents.

So, naturally, I was eager to see how McMahon voted when the measure squeaked through the House last night by a vote of 220 to 215. Disappointingly, McMahon was one of 39 Democrats who voted with Republicans against it. (One Republican, Louisiana’s Joseph Ahn Quang Cao, voted for it. More about him later.)

To his credit, McMahon’s contributions of just over $100,000 from the health care industry ranked far below those of many other Members of Congress. My representative, Charlie Rangel, topped $3 million, and the list of members who hit the one and two million dollar mark is longer than it ought to be. The Washington Post has a great chart here http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/votes/house/healthcare/index.html

Republicans have long sailed past the tired, the poor and the humble masses who are honored at the Statue of Liberty, but you have to wonder about Democrats like McMahon. Why would they refuse to support this major initiative by a Congress and President who campaigned on changing things? And why would voters return them to office if what they really want is a Republican? President Obama was clear yesterday that voting against health care was not going to save members from a Republican challenge, but people like McMahon seem not to have heard him.

If you’ve ever canvassed, you know how tricky it can be to get a person to give you not only their signature but the place where they live. But many of the people who signed were not only happy to do so, they wanted a letter to pass to friends. Of course, some people, earbuds attached, stayed buried in their reading matter, and a few shared their opposition to health care reform as constituted.

The most common reason I heard for opposition was some version of the fear that people who don’t work will somehow be rewarded. When I explained to one young woman that the public option did not mean free health care for the uninsured, but an alternative for insurance, she gladly signed.

Staten Island (and the parts of Brooklyn McMahon represents) are largely blue collar or up and coming middle class; it’s a fast commute to Wall Street, but it doesn’t attract the top echelon. A quick scan of the ferry passengers revealed a far more ethnically diverse group than once lived on Staten Island. Some people who declined to sign our letter said they were not citizens, and I wondered if they were part of the reason others opposed health care.

But this is New York, where immigrants, with and without the proper papers, have been coming for generations, and there is a greater level of acceptance of this phenomenon than in most of America.

I thought it sad that President Obama felt he had to say health care reform would not include undocumented immigrants. Speaker Pelosi faced the prospect of losing the votes of Latino representatives until she blocked heavy penalties against undocumented immigrants who buy health insurance.

While it seemed odd to me that Democrats were so willing to tie health insurance to employment in the face of the largest economic downturn since the Great Depression, I’ve concluded that anything the US Chamber of Commerce opposes so vehemently can’t be all bad. Anyone who buys health insurance (either through payroll deduction or privately) is one more person who is less likely come into an emergency room on the brink of a major health crisis that might have been prevented. We might turn immigrants away from insurance, but, ultimately, we won’t let them die. I hope.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the lone Republican to vote yes on this legislation was a refugee from Vietnam and immigration activist. We ought to give that congressman, Anh Quang Cao, a free trip to Liberty Island. And, of course, we still have to reform our immigration policies.