There is no politician alive today who has worked as long, or as hard, on health-care reform as Rep. John Dingell Jr. Sometimes called the "dean of the House," the 83-year-old Michigan Democrat occupies the seat his father once held. It was in that seat that Dingell's father introduced the first national health-care bill ever considered by Congress. I spoke to Dingell earlier today about the legislation's troubles.

What's the mood in Congress today?

Congress is not so bad off. It's the country. This was a great misfortune. The result of a poor candidate running a bad campaign. I don't really think health care was involved in it. They've got health care up there. About 3 percent are uninsured, and many of those are illegal immigrants. And [Scott] Brown [R-Mass.] voted for that bill!

I always find it distressing that Republicans stray so far from the truth and run such dirty campaigns, and this campaign was a classic example of that. They refused to participate at all in the drafting of this bill. But they have announced their intention to see that this legislation doesn't pass and that this Congress doesn't do anything so they can then run against it later.

But to take the focus off of Republicans, much of the problem here has been the Democratic reaction to Brown's victory. If they'd calmly lamented Martha Coakley's failures and firmly declared their intention to move forward with the important work of health-care reform, we'd be having a very different conversation.

You're making some assumptions. I think most Democrats are doing the same thing I've been doing. I've been pushing for this for 54 years. The speaker has come out and said just about what you said. Same with the rest of the leaders. The president has made a similar comment. Now, I won't tell you my colleagues are not upset about losing. But I haven't heard anyone say we'll retreat into our hole. When we started this campaign, we only had 58 votes in the Senate. [Arlen] Specter was not a Democrat. [Al] Franken hadn't been seated. We'll have 59 votes after Brown, which is one more than we had then.

What are the Democrats' options going forward?

First, pass the Senate bill. Second, pass the Senate bill and address the deficiencies in a package under reconciliation. Third, address the whole business under reconciliation, with some problems. It's also possible to break off some of the things we've done before and do them. You've got the Patient's Bill of Rights, children's health, government negotiation of drug pricing. There are loads of things you can do.

The first two options seem easiest. But there's been real despair on the Democratic side about passing the Senate bill, even with the prospect of modifications. But no one who understands this stuff thinks the difference between the bare Senate bill and the likely compromise measure is bigger than the difference between the Senate bill and the miserable status quo.

I don't think you're hearing despair. I think you're hearing anger. People feel the matter has been badly handled and that a year's work has been dissipated by the change in the Senate. I'm not satisfied that that is the proper response to this. But I think that when those people have presented to them by the leadership a clear statement of what course will be taken, those people will jump aboard. The fact of the matter is we don't have time to be angry.

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