Senate HELP Committee passed health care reform bill today (with, of course, NO GOP Votes)

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee passed a significant health care reform bill today. The Ted Kennedy/Chris Dodd-led HELP Committee is a much better place to start get a real reform bill than the Senator Max Baucus-led Finance Committee.

Jonathan Cohn at TNR's "The Treatment" picks up on a key point from Senator Dodd:

Dodd went on to note that a weak bill, even one with bipartisan support, might be difficult to sustain, both during the congressional debate and afterwards. In other words, a weak bill would do less for the American people--and they would be less satisfied with it.

He's absolutely right about all of that. And it's important to remember that bipartisanship was always a longshot on the HELP Committee. The most likely pickups were Senators Mike Enzi and Orrin Hatch. But while Hatch, at least, has some history of collaborating with Kennedy on health legislation, they both have fundamental differences with what the Democrats are trying to do.

If you want to guarantee coverage to all Americans, make benefits more reliable, and improve quality while restraining cost growth, you have to reorganize and regulate the insurance industry, redirect the patterns of medical care, and rejigger the way money flows through the health care system. You also have to raise some new revenue, at least in the short term.

Enzi and Hatch, like most Republicans, oppose these things. And that is certainly their prerogative. They are conservatives, after all. But that also means we shouldn't treat their decision to reject reform as some sort of failure.

Many Republicans don't want any health care reform. They're happy with the status quo. So, not only will those GOPers work to kill real reform, they'll work to weaken what does pass. Then, they can crow that Democrats didn't fix health care. (Think about the stimulus.)

Striving to hard for bipartisanship could doom successful reform. It's looking like more Democrats are realizing that. And, if Democrats aren't going to get GOP support, those Democrats should stop compromising with themselves. Bipartisanship might make David Broder and other Villagers happy. But, they all have very good health care. This isn't about them. It's about the rest of us.