Who will carry forward the fight for national health care now that Ted Kennedy is gone? There are two answers to that question.

In the Senate, the heir to the struggle must be someone with Kennedy's vision and commitment. That knocks out all but a handful of senators. Of those who remain, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders stands out. The chief sponsor of legislation to create a Medicare-for-all system, he has a long record of building bipartisan coalitions to advance real reforms. He's also a member of the key committee - health and education - and served at Kennedy's side in recent years.

When Kennedy died last week, Sanders hailed his colleague's career in public service as having been "driven by a deep sense of compassion and a belief that, in this great country, every American should be entitled to quality health care, education and other basic needs as well as equal justice under the law."

The same can be said for Sanders, an independent who is the antithesis not merely of the Republican "party of no" but also of the Democrats who reject public option solutions because their insurance industry patrons have paid them to maintain a corrupt status quo.

Like Kennedy, Sanders has also accepted a leadership role that extends far beyond Washington.

On Saturday, Sept. 12, Sanders will appear in Baraboo at Fighting Bob Fest to rally thousands of Wisconsinites on behalf of real reform of a broken health care system.

This year's Fighting Bob Fest will also feature Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, a stalwart champion of reform, and Wendell Potter, the former insurance industry executive who has blown the whistle on the manipulation of the debate by corporate interests, as well as Congresswomen Tammy Baldwin and Gwen Moore, journalists Jeremy Scahill and Greg Palast, and other activists who aren't afraid to speak truth to power.

Sanders will be introduced by Dr. Gene Farley, who has spent decades battling to ensure that doctors and patients make health care decisions - as opposed to the insurance companies that make their money by bossing doctors around and telling patients that necessary treatments are not covered.

Working closely with the group Physicians for a National Health Care Program, Farley (along with his late wife Linda, also a physician) emerged as a national champion of Medicare-for-all reforms. But, like Sanders, he has always recognized that the movement for those reforms must come from the grass roots.

And that is the second answer to the question of who will replace Kennedy in leading the fight for real reform.

Bernie Sanders will do his part. But the key word is "part."

It is going to take a movement to reform this broken health care system -- a movement that must lift every voice in a mighty cry for change. It won't start in Washington. It will come from Baraboo on Sept. 12, with the roar from Bob Fest.

John Nichols is the associate editor of The Capital Times.

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