A joke among us health care types:

There are two kinds of people - those that don’t understand health reform, and those who don’t know they don’t understand health reform.

I was put on the health reform beat about a year ago - almost to the day - and steadily fell into a routine in pursuit of The Story. Wedging into crowded committee hearings. Mining my reporter friends or buddies on the Hill for tidbits. Sitting in my dark office, illuminated only by the computer’s glow, the click-click of the keyboard marking the time.

It was frustrating. So many new facets to uncover, every day. An idea could take wing, seemingly out of nowhere, as though legislators were seized by the spirit and forced to babble jargon. Proposals could rise and fall within hours. Press offices would spin, spin, spin until the same story appeared on every news feed, relying on quotes that were just-slightly different, clearly sharing DNA.

It was exhilarating.

As the prospect of real, substantive health reform swelled, my personal fitness shrunk. Politics aside, optimism and skepticism traded places a few times.

We’re in a pretty skeptical place right now.

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