positive - more desirable trading partner (constructivist, or rationalist in that American workers are healthier)

negative - higher taxes, greater regulatory burden

What will happen is that international groups will credibly listen to him that he can get something through the senate. Because HCR passed, now Europe and Russia and China now will believe there actually might be a path for a climate change/CO2 bill which means they might be willing to talk about plausible solutions rather than just deny, deny, deny (I'm looking at you China and India).

Also, this means that Obama now can really focus on immigration and hopefully connected to that the drug problem in Mexico (which is really America's drug problem) and maybe we can get some sanity in discussing legalization (marijuana) or treatment of some addicts.

I wonder, will the health-care breakthrough result in the freeing up of manpower among the President's staff, which can be directed to other resources? Or do staff member tend to spend their time on pursuing further goals within the area of health-care?

Related to this, does such a victory result in increased motivation to tackle other issues as well?

Is there any data on this, from previous big breakthroughs in lawmaking over the past decades?

I believe that pushing health care through enhances Obama's stature abroad a president who can get big things done. Sarkozy is one leader who in the recent past questioned has Obama's ability to make key, big decisions. I suspect there have been others.

It seems even the Chinese press is showing a reluctant respect for the legislative achievement. Evan Osnos' latest post on his "Letters from China" New Yorker blog refers to a Guangzhou Daily editorial suggesting that perhaps China does have a few areas in which it could learn from the U.S. after all. Osnos writes:

"On Monday, China awoke to discover that the U.S. had found the will to provide medical coverage to tens of millions of uninsured Americans. The U.S. and China don’t see eye-to-eye on much these days, but, for a brief moment, China seemed to glimpse the old teacher again. Zhao Haijian, a commentator in Guangzhou Daily, wrote today that, as China looks at its health-care reform plans, “paying attention to the health care reforms in the U.S. just might provide some reference and inspiration.”"

It will enbolden China at a time of increasing tension with them, raising the probablity of a major miscalculation/incident, as we are going to have to borrow more and more money from them to fund this new entitlement; and the possible loss of our triple-A credit rating and higher borrowing costs will make us much weaker, both in perception and reality.

Is everyone saying that pushing through the health care bill was a positive development?

Well, let me swim against the tide.

In my view, Obama's domestic political success will turn out to be a curse in foreign policy. Why? Let's call it the "paradox of strength." Some astute observers will probabily have noticed that I'm using the opposite of Shelling's "paradox of weakness." The foreign leaders will now draw the conclusion that if Obama can get through such a highy controversial bill through Capitol Hill as the health care bill, then he can push through pretty much everything. What does that mean? That they can ask for more when they now engage in hard bargaining with the Obama administration. In other words, world leaders can now be expected to "push around" Obama a littler more. This is an ominous sign, to say the least. But this is the huge complexity involved when you play at both the international and national levels at the same time!

Good luck Mr. Obama!