The whispering among Democratic staff on both sides of Capitol Hill is that it is easy to agree about health care reform when you speak of generalities.

Specifics, however, are a different story.

The New Republic has been a cheerleader for progressive and comprehensive health care reform. Pass it now, pass it soon has been its drumbeat, until now.

They just published this article titled: “The Art of the Possible Health care reform is going to be remarkably difficult to pass. This is what we can do.”

It was a bit of shock to the faithful, I am sure.

But when the White House says that it is letting Congress take the lead on reforming health care and not taking a top down approach like the Clinton White House did — because advocates have learned their lesson from the failure of the Clinton plan — this simple statement begs a question: when has Congress succeed in passing comprehensive health care reform?

The New Republic article is really just an advocacy piece for consensus health care items.

A through discussion of the cultural and political impediments to health care reform can be found here — but, essentially the point is well taken, comprehensive health care reform has a very high degree of difficulty.