Did you hear? Health care reform is on the rocks, and Barack Obama's political clout hangs in the balance.

"One thing we've learned, it seems, from presidents is you better win that first year," Chris Matthews agitated last week on "Hardball." "If you don't win on your big issue, your pet project... you really set a standard for defeat and you go down to further losses down the road." NBC White House correspondent Chuck Todd nodded in agreement and the wisdom became conventional.

Certainly, the White House feels a sense of urgency. Last week, after Obama pledged that he would "absolutely" pass reforms this year, Dianne Sawyer asked, "If you don't, is it over for four years?" Obama bristled. "We're gonna get it done, so I won't engage in hypotheticals in which we don't." Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, Obama's original choice to lead the push on reform, told NationalJournal.com in April that a bill must be passed this year if it is to happen at all.

But those who observe the current push for health care reform and see déjà vu all over again for a young Democratic president may be overlooking some important inconsistencies in the parallel.

Lawmakers are still trying to find common ground on the shape of the legislation, but polls show public support remains squarely behind health care reform, and there are now 60 Democrats in the Senate, many of whom campaigned on passing it. No matter the bill's final language, the bottom line is unchanged: Congress will almost certainly pass some sort of bill, and Obama will almost certainly sign it.

"I think everybody in the [Democratic] leadership has decided that the stupidest thing they did in 1994 was quit without a bill," said Bob Blendon, a professor of health policy and political analysis at Harvard. "I think it may be a lot smaller than what they have been talking about, but there will be a bill. There are huge repercussions for revving up the public and then doing nothing."

Watered down reforms might not satisfy the most progressive advocates, Blendon added, but even just a few substantive advances will be enough for the White House to declare victory.

If Obama and congressional Democrats end up settling for a plan that doesn't include a public option, a compromise bill could still set up future reforms by showcasing the savings produced by innovations like electronic medical records, bundling and medical homes. There's a vigorous debate over whether electronic records will save the federal government money: Estimates range from tens of billions a year down to essentially no savings at all. Passing a smaller bill gives Obama a chance to prove that more wide-reaching legislation is affordable.

Either way, Obama has bought himself an insurance policy in the event that legislation fails or falls short of what his supporters are hoping for, argued Chris Jennings, a member of Bill Clinton's health care team in the early 1990s. Clinton drafted a 1,300-page bill without consulting lawmakers and then drew a line in the sand and declared a public insurance option non-negotiable. His total ownership let critics label the plan "HillaryCare" and left him holding the bag when the reforms failed.

"I think the lesson from 1994 is not to craft a bill in secret that affects one-sixth of the economy and dump it on Congress," said David Mermin, a partner at Lake Research who has done polling for Health Care For America Now.

"It's becoming an American solution -- not an Obama solution, or a [Max] Baucus solution, or a [Edward] Kennedy solution," said Jennings, who now runs a health policy and advocacy consulting shop. "If you personalize it to one person, it's far easier to attack and malign."

By leaving the details up to Congress, Obama also increases his chances of getting bipartisan support. The tone Obama has set has already sparked some aisle-crossing: Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Bob Bennett, R-Utah, have enlisted Democrats and Republicans behind a bill that would eliminate employer-provided health care coverage in an effort to make the insurance market more competitive.

Assuming lawmakers take a share of the blame for any failure, could that hamstring the Democratic-controlled Congress, which already boasts a 33 percent approval rating, heading into the midterm elections? Maybe. Conventional wisdom holds that Clinton's health care debacle helped fuel the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994 and Bush's Social Security failure helped the Democrats recapture Congress in 2006.

But this isn't 1994 or 2006, and today's GOP simply doesn't appear poised to capitalize on any Democratic health care fumbles. House Republicans recently unveiled an alternative "plan" topping out at four pages but have yet to coalesce behind many specifics. And that's to say nothing of the GOP's leadership crisis: Fifty-two percent of Americans in a recent USA Today/Gallup poll couldn't name someone who speaks for the party, and among those who could, the top response was a radio personality. More broadly, the number of self-identified Republicans has plummeted since 2001.

Regardless of whether they can get their house in order by next fall, Republicans are already going to be busy playing defense: the Cook Political Report identifies six tossup Senate races, four of which are currently in GOP hands. Democrats are ascendant among the young in particular, and 67 percent of voters aged 18-29 want Obama to revamp the system, according to Diageo/Hotline polling. Defeating health care reform might notch Republicans a strategic victory, but it's hardly a blueprint for a comeback.