KIT BOND HELPS ENSURE PASSAGE OF HEALTH REFORM

The Kassebaum-Kennedy health reform passed the Senate 100-0, but that margin doesn't tell the real story. The bipartisan bill was nearly killed by partisan politics, and it was saved by just four U.S. senators who showed profiles in courage. Sen. Christopher S. "Kit" Bond of Missouri is one of the four heroes.

A lot was at stake. The reform can put an end to some of the worst practices of the health insurance industry. Millions of Americans are locked into jobs they want to leave. Millions are denied the right to buy adequate insurance because of pre-existing conditions in their families.

The General Accounting Office estimates that the reform could help 25 million insured Americans keep from losing their coverage. Even if the reform were to help only a small portion of that number, it would be massively valuable and a monument to the idea of fairness. After all, it makes no sense at all to tell the brightest, most hard-working Americans that they could lose health insurance for their families if they dare to aspire to better jobs or if they try to set up their own businesses. But that is what happens every day in America. Surveys have shown that fully a quarter of the American work force experiences job lock because changing jobs can put their families at risk, especially if a daughter has asthma, a husband has hypertension or a wife has diabetes.

The power of the argument for the reform introduced by Sen. Nancy Kassebaum, R-Kan., and Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., is so great that hardly anybody was willing to speak out against the legislation, despite the efforts of some insurance lobbyists. But money still speaks in the political process, and what can't be denounced publicly can often be destroyed quietly. The plot against the Kassebaum-Kennedy reform took shape first in the House, where the reform was loaded down with several anti-consumer amendments, turning a small bipartisan bill into a big partisan one.

But the key to blocking the reform was to weight it down with controversial amendments in the Senate. Even one such amendment would guarantee its ultimate sinking into the sea of failed reforms. Kassebaum, in her final year in the Senate, made an impassioned plea to save this crowning achievement of her career: pass it clean. Kennedy stood with her in this struggle. And they prevailed in the Senate only because four Republican senators stood by their admired colleague from Kansas and defeated the poison pill in the form of a controversial amendment. These four senators represented Missouri, Washington, Oregon and Rhode Island.

Forty years ago, John F. Kennedy wrote a book about courageous senators who stood against party and self-interest to save the best interests of America, a book he called "Profiles in Courage." Bond has written a new chapter with his courageous vote.

Ron Pollack is executive director of Families USA, a national health consumer group.