What Ted Would Say: Victoria Reggie Kennedy Pens Op-Ed, Backs Senate
Bill
[Ted Kennedy]
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/18/AR20091\
21803506.html> Ted Kennedy
by Victoria Reggie Kennedy Sunday, December 20, 2009
My late husband, Ted Kennedy, was passionate about health-care
reform. It was the cause of his life. He believed that health care for
all our citizens was a fundamental right, not a privilege, and that this
year the stars -- and competing interests -- were finally aligned to
allow our nation to move forward with fundamental reform. He believed
that health-care reform was essential to the financial stability of our
nation's working families and of our economy as a whole.
Still, Ted knew that accomplishing reform would be difficult. If it were
easy, he told me, it would have been done a long time ago. He predicted
that as the Senate got closer to a vote, compromises would be necessary,
coalitions would falter and many ardent supporters of reform would want
to walk away. He hoped that they wouldn't do so. He knew from
experience, he told me, that this kind of opportunity to enact
health-care reform wouldn't arise again for a generation.
In the early 1970s, Ted worked with the Nixon administration to find
consensus on health-care reform. Those efforts broke down in part
because the compromise wasn't ideologically pure enough for some
constituency groups.
More than 20 years passed before there was another real opportunity for
reform, years during which human suffering only increased. Even with the
committed leadership of then-President Bill Clinton and his wife, reform
was thwarted in the 1990s.
As Ted wrote in his memoir, he was deeply disappointed that the Clinton
health-care bill did not come to a vote in the full Senate. He believed
that senators should have gone on the record, up or down.
Ted often said that we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
He also said that it was better to get half a loaf than no loaf at all,
especially with so many lives at stake.
That's why, even as he never stopped fighting for comprehensive
health-care reform, he also championed incremental but effective reforms
such as a Patients' Bill of Rights, the Children's Health Insurance
Program and COBRA continuation of health coverage.
The bill before the Senate, while imperfect, would achieve many of the
goals Ted fought for during the 40 years he championed access to
quality, affordable health care for all Americans. If this bill passes:
-- Insurance protections like the ones Ted fought for his entire life
would become law.
-- Thirty million Americans who do not have coverage would finally be
able to afford it. Ninety-four percent of Americans would be insured.
Americans would finally be able to live without fear that a single
illness could send them into financial ruin.
-- Insurance companies would no longer be able to deny people the
coverage they need because of a preexisting illness or condition. They
would not be able to drop coverage when people get sick. And there would
be a limit on how much they can force Americans to pay out of their own
pockets when they do get sick.
-- Small-business owners would no longer have to fear being forced to
lay off workers or shut their doors because of exorbitant insurance
rates. Medicare would be strengthened for the millions of seniors who
count on it.
-- And by eliminating waste and inefficiency in our health-care system,
this bill would bring down the deficit over time.
Health care would finally be a right, and not a privilege, for the
citizens of this country. While my husband believed in a robust public
option as an effective way to lower costs and increase competition, he
also believed in not losing sight of the forest for the trees. As long
as he wasn't compromising his principles or values, he looked for a way
forward.
As President Obama noted to Congress this fall, for Ted, health-care
reform was not a matter of ideology or politics. It was not about left
or right, Democrat or Republican. It was a passion born from the
experience of his own life, the experience of our family and the
experiences of the millions of Americans across this country who
considered him their senator, too.
The bill before Congress will finally deliver on the urgent needs of all
Americans. It would make their lives better and do so much good for this
country. That, in the end, must be the test of reform. That was always
the test for Ted Kennedy. He's not here to urge us not to let this
chance slip through our fingers.
So I humbly ask his colleagues to finish the work of his life, the work
of generations, to allow the vote to go forward and to pass health-care
reform now. As Ted always said, when it's finally done, the people will
wonder what took so long.
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