This morning, bloggers across the liberal blogosphere thought of memorializing Senator Kennedy by naming the health care bill after him. This is fitting and natural, since health care reform was the Senator’s premier issue. Moreover, he continued to work toward its passage this year, as he was dying, as long as his body allowed him to work.
There is an impulse to honor the dead by erasing the sharp edges of their life. To ensure they belong to all of us, and in doing, deprive them of the dignity conferred by their actual choices, their lonely stands, and their long work. But Ted Kennedy didn’t belong to all of us. He didn’t even belong to all Democrats. He was not of the party that voted for more than a trillion in unfunded tax cuts but cannot bring itself to pay for health-care reform. He was not of the party that fears the next election more than the next failure to help America;s needy. Rather, he belonged to the party of Medicare and Medicaid, the Americans With Disabilities Act and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, the Civil Rights Act and immigration reform. He belonged to the party that sought to advance the conditions and opportunities of the least among us. He was, as Harold Meyerson says, “the senior senator from Massachusetts and for all the excluded in American life.”
And he still is.
Be sure to read all of Ezra’s post, and also this one, which includes links and videos.
A few hours ago the Right began a pre-emptive strike to prevent the passing of Senator Edward Kennedy from impacting the health care debate. The meme going around is that we liberals are shamelessly using Edward Kennedy’s death to push our agenda. There was a trackback, now deleted, to a prominent rightie site attached to my last post. I’m being slammed for writing,
I had hoped Senator Kennedy would live to see a health care reform bill signed. If Congress does pass a decent bill, I hope they name it after the Senator.
… as if wishing to memorialize the senator is somehow out of bounds, just a cheap ploy to score a legislative win.
I’m not going to link to any of the hate posts out today. Just know that few of them are holding back or making any pretense of respecting the dead. Then ignore them.
A National “March for Healthcare” is being organized for September 13. I’d like to see a big turnout. See also Steven Pearlstein’s column today.
Republicans seem determined to preserve the uniquely American system under which health care is rationed today — on the basis of employment status and ability to pay. According to the respected Institute of Medicine, this market-based approach to rationing has held the number of untimely deaths each year to a mere 18,000 uninsured souls. Thanks to Medicare, all of those victims are younger than 65, but apparently that is the kind of age-based rationing that real Republicans can embrace.
The struggle continues.
