The White House will never issue a press release declaring comprehensive health care reform dead. But it is - at least in its current form. Can it come back in some scaled-back version? Maybe - yet only if Democrats make some critical mid-course corrections.

Surely one scheme that won't work is the two-step plan some Democrats in Congress are trying to hatch. This approach calls the Senate first to pass a new measure using a special budget process known as "reconciliation" (which only requires 51 votes to pass in the Senate). This separate bill would "fix" House Democrats' problems with the Senate-passed health care reform legislation. After the "fix" is in (think a humongous special-interest bill that exempts union-sponsored health plans from higher taxes, reverses the provision that keeps states like Nebraska from paying their full share of Medicaid and who knows what other cats and dogs to buy votes), the House would presumably pass the Senate bill and send it to the president. Good luck.

This approach will never succeed because, like the latest Meryl Streep/Alec Baldwin movie, "It's Complicated." Complicated may accurately describe the state of some personal relationships, but it just won't fly with voters or apprehensive members of Congress.

One thing is clear, however. Congress needs a timeout on health care reform. And during this breather, President Obama and his Democratic allies should take stock of what went wrong and change direction, not just hit the reset button on a failed strategy. Here are three principles that might resuscitate the legislative patient.

First, big domestic policy change requires at least some bipartisan support. There should be no debate about this point. Major reform never occurs without at least some votes from the other side of the aisle. The president and Democratic leaders in Congress need to grasp this reality. Even President Obama can't defy gravity. Nor can Democrats pass a purely partisan health care plan - and live to tell about it.

Passing health reform without any Republican votes is an electoral suicide pact and should not be an option. The president needs to tell Speaker Pelosi and Senate Leader Harry Reid: "I will not move forward without at least some Republican votes. Period. Now let's figure this out." If that's not possible, move on.

Second, acknowledge the "sausage-making paradox." Americans say they love transparency but hate legislative process. Anytime the horse-trading becomes so public the deals actually acquire names, (Louisiana Purchase for Senator Landrieu of Louisiana, Cornhusker Kickback for Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska), it's time to go underground. The irony of course is that everybody wants transparency... until warts get uncovered. There is no legislative equivalent of Compound W. And, back to my first point, a scaled-back, bipartisan bill would not contain as many unsightly growths intended to ease passage.

The current version of health care reform was clearly overexposed. Many see the wisdom of a little less transparency - or at least blatant voting-getting deals. Drew Altman, a health care policy expert who heads the nonprofit Henry J. Kaiser Foundation gets the paradox. He told the L.A. Times's Noam Levey recently, "In a 24-hour news cycle, with the Internet and bloggers and cable news, sometimes a lot more can be accomplished, especially with healthcare, when it happens behind closed doors." Senator Mark Pryor of Arkansas observed in the same article, "a little bit of time and quiet could help."

Finally, stop using the bully pulpit to sell the plan. Americans want common sense solutions, not a campaign-style sales pitch. There is a difference. Every time the president has gone "public" to build support over the past year, approval of the health care plan has dropped. Mr. Obama's orations may not have been the kiss of death, but they didn't infatuate the public with the legislative product either.

These results should come as no surprise. Political Scientists like George Edwards in his book On Deaf Ears: The Limits of the Bully Pulpit and Samuel Kernell in Going Public explain why the political efficacy of presidential communications campaigns is overrated. Media fragmentation (resulting in fewer people listening), increased partisanship, and the ability of the president's opponents to mount targeted counter-mobilizations are some of the reasons why these scholars question the value of presidents "taking their case to the people." It rarely works.

Can the White House and congressional Democrats accomplish a midcourse correction that finds some Republican support, keeps the deal making to a minimum, and results in the president discovering the value of "going private"? Not likely. But if the Democrats insist on forcing the current comprehensive measure through the process in 2010 without any of the adjustments discussed, they better learn to say Speaker Boehner in 2011.