When the monitors start beeping again and paychecks resume, Americans will still be watching one vital sign: Did Congress revive a bureaucracy, or did it restart a country that’s still out of breath? Guest columnist

Christopher R. Crossett, is a board-certified rehabilitation nurse and health-systems leader based in Cedar Rapids.

Washington has stopped breathing. The government is in a budget standoff, paychecks are frozen, and public trust is on life support. Yet the deeper crisis isn’t on Capitol Hill — it’s in the emergency rooms, nursing stations, and shuttered hospitals across the country.

If Congress truly wants to show that the government still works, it has to do more than pass a stopgap budget. It has to resuscitate the nation’s health care system — the one that’s been flatlini

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