Heroes and villains of health reform

It's not over—yet. But here's how history will record the profiles in courage and cowardice we've witnessed in the health-reform battle.

Robert Shrum

Assuming that the health-reform struggle culminates in a dramatic, down-to-the-wire House roll call that enacts the bill, history will record not only a landmark achievement but the names of those who did the most to pass it or block it. What follows is a first draft, a list of the heroes and the villains of this final battle.

It comes with two caveats.

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Robert Shrum has been a senior adviser to the Gore 2000 presidential campaign, the campaign of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and the British Labour Party. In addition to being the chief strategist for the 2004 Kerry-Edwards campaign, Shrum has advised thirty winning U.S. Senate campaigns; eight winning campaigns for governor; mayors of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, and other major cities; and the Democratic Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives. Shrum's writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The New Republic, Slate, and other publications. The author of No Excuses: Concessions of a Serial Campaigner (Simon and Schuster), he is currently a Senior Fellow at New York University's Wagner School of Public Service.