Op-Ed - I worked for Snowe

While Democrats may yet enact health care reform via a convoluted process that involves passing three separate bills, many people may wonder, "What happened to the postpartisan era?" Both President Obama's 11th-hour meeting with Republicans and the Republican leaders' demands to "start over" are recognized by Americans for what they are -- political talk substituting for bipartisan legislation.

As health policy adviser for Senator Olympia Snowe, the Maine Republican, while Congress considered this most critical and complicated issue, I saw firsthand how a failure to recognize the magnitude of the task, and a toxic political environment, undermined the effort to achieve reform.