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Loading...Healthcare Reform Without Kennedy: Remembering Kennedy and His Cause
One of healthcare reform’s greatest champions died Tuesday night. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) succumbed to brain cancer at the age of 77. During his 46-year career in the senate, Kennedy’s name appeared on virtually every major piece of progressive legislation from civil rights to economic justice, to healthcare. Kennedy called healthcare reform “the cause of my life.”
Jack Newfield of The Nation remembers Kennedy as the senate’s fighting liberal, the “best and most effective senator of the past hundred years.”
James Ridgeway of Mother Jones laments:
We are left with weak, squabbling, visionless Democratic puppets and a President whose domestic reform policies are adrift—sliding towards the horizon with each passing day.
The loss is a blow to healthcare reform. Alex Koppelman of Salon notes that with Kennedy’s passing, the Democrats have lost one of their most effective bipartisan deal-makers. Democrats will also be down a vote in the senate for the foreseeable future because Massachusetts state law doesn’t allow for the appointment of an immediate replacement.
Naturally, with congress on vacation, wackos are rushing in to fill the media vacuum. Eric Boehlert asks in AlterNet why Republicans the only ones allowed to get angry about healthcare reform, or anything else. He notes that in 2003, the media decided that Howard Dean was too angry for prime time. During the Republican National Convention in 2008, SWAT teams were sent to raid the homes of suspected anarchist protesters. And yet, conservative demonstrators in Arizona are allowed to tote rifles just outside the security perimeter of a presidential event.
RNC Chair Michael Steele raised eyebrows by championing single-payer healthcare in an op/ed in the Washington Post framing the GOP as defenders of Medicare.
Odd that Steele has so much love for Medicare, but none for the nation’s other leading source of government-run healthcare, the Veterans Administration (VA). This week, Steele accused America’s other leading public insurance provider of encouraging veterans to commit suicide, based on a booklet published by the VA which explains living wills, advanced directives and other key concepts in end-of-life care, Rachel Slajda reports for TPM DC.
Progressives have been doing a great job debunking the death panel and death book myths, like this creative photo essay from TPM. But we’re scarcely addressing the misconception that underlies them: The idea government-administered health insurance is inherently more prone to rationing than private health insurance.
Newt Gingrich and other prominent opponents of reform claim that a public option will restrict choices and deny care. What they don’t say is that for-profit insurance is rationing. When your insurance company covers an old drug for your condition, but not a new one with fewer side effects, that’s rationing. The company is restricting your treatment choices to improve its bottom line. When an employer or an insurer decides not to cover mental health care, that’s rationing. The entire business model is predicated on charging people more and giving them less care so there’s more money left over for the stockholders.
No health insurance can cover every treatment, no matter who runs it. But public insurance has two major advantages: 1) Public insurance tends to be cheaper to administer; 2) The tough choices about what to cover are ultimately in the hands of the voters, not health insurance bureaucrats with an eye on the bottom line.
The whole town hall concept is turning out to be a strategic blunder for the White House. The format makes legislators and the media sitting ducks for extremists and astroturfers who want to paint themselves as typical citizens. As Sandy Heierbacher of the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation writes in YES Magazine:
[T]he town hall design sets the stage for activist groups and special interest groups to try to ‘game’ the system and sideline other concerned citizens in the process. As Martin Carcasson, director of Colorado State University’s Center for Public Deliberation, recently pointed out, “the loudest voices are the ones that get heard, and typically the majority voices in the middle don’t even show up because it becomes a shouting match.”
How much more clear can the Republicans be? They are not interested in bipartisanship. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), supposedly the Senate’s leading reasonable Republican on healthcare, couldn’t even be bothered to rebuke a town hall participant who hinted about assassinating the president, as Raw Story reports.
If the Democrats want healthcare reform, they are going to have to go it alone. Let’s hope they pass a bill that would make Sen. Kennedy proud.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about healthcare and is free to reprint. It is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of 50 leading independent media outlets, and created by NewsLadder.
Read more: health care reform, health policy, jack newfield, james ridgeway, kennedy, kennedys death, senator edward kennedy
Dietrichpix via Flickr
by Lindsay Beyerstein from The Media Consortium
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may
not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.
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foie gras should be banned everywhere
Wayne G., you just beat me to it, so a green star is on it's way. By the time I was in 7th grade, I figured…
Very interesting thanks :)
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+ add your ownThe best indicator that a public option will work is the fight going on now to derail it.
In re: drinking by Hispanic adolecents. Here's drunk driving statstics by age group:
"The highest intoxication rates in fatal crashes in 2001 were recorded for drivers 21-24 years old (33 percent), followed by ages 25-34 (28 percent) and 35-44 (25 percent)."
(source: http://www.alcoholalert.com/drunk-driving-statistics-2001.html)
Hispanic adolecents aren't major contributors.
Kids, please don't listen to Ed R; he doesn't know what he's talking about.
Jim
Ed R,
This is not for you; indeed nothing you can say merits attention, except to protect young minds for your ignorance an hate.
To any who might read Ed R's verbal diarrhea, here are the stats on alcoholism and ethnicity, if it matters (not really, just treat alcoholism to the best of our ability wihtout regarrd for ethnicity):
"Alcoholism and Ethnicity
Survey data from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) indicates that adult drinking (12 or more drinks in the past year) and adult heavy drinking (five drinks on a single day at least once a month) are most prevalent among American Indians and Alaskan Natives and Native Hawaiians and the least prevalent among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. However, alcohol use is increasing quite a bit among Asian Americans, one of the fastest growing U.S. minority group. Among adolescent minorities studied nationwide, African Americans show the lowest prevalence of lifetime, annual, monthly, daily, and heavy drinking, as well as the lowest frequency of being drunk. Hispanic adolescents have the highest annual prevalence of heavy drinking, followed by Whites. "
Source: http://www.newsdial.com/health/substance-abuse/alcoholism-statistics.html
"Ted Kennedy's death has nothing to do with HealthCare Reform."
Honoring the Kennedy legacy might very-well create the party unity need for reform passage. The reverence for the Kennedys is huge for us (Dems). The family has given and sacrificed so much for our country that we (Dems and eveny many Reps) and history will never forget Jack, Bobby and Teddy. They're America's family.
If you don't feel the same way, I pity you. But so be it.
Jim
"I can't believe that anyone has the audacity to claim that Republicans don't want bipartisanship when the bill was drafted by one party,"
Believe it. It's pure contrairian BS; nothing Reps calling for is anything other the an effort to confuse annd divide. They're all shills for the health insurance lobby.
Thankfully they're not needed. Obama just needs to get Dems in line, which is his job as the leader of the party.
Fingers crossed.
Jim
I can't believe that anyone has the audacity to claim that Republicans don't want bipartisanship when the bill was drafted by one party, Unless Obama wants something from the other party, like passing an unread bill before they all take a vacation, he has never been bi-partisan. Did Obama, Pelosi & Reid think ignorance was bliss? Pelosi held a private Dem Party to add a couple hundred pages in one evening? Where was the bipartisan, transparent effort then? What's good for the goose is never allowed for the gander, at least since Jan 20th. Healthcare reform should not be passed in its current state without debate & deliberation & without taking into account the protester's concerns. Please don't excuse Democrats from the game. It cheapens the value of your opinion. This isn't about a Party. It is about the cost & the control that the government can't afford & that people don't want. It is not fair to enact a bill that has not been scrutinized & gone over with a fine tooth comb. Representatives can RUN, but they can't hide from the voters who put them in the positions they are in. They need to do their jobs or resign. Ted Kennedy's death has nothing to do with HealthCare Reform. He is not here to further Obama's agenda or vote from beyond the grave. Trying to guilt people into honoring a deceased person is pathetic. Reform should only pass on its own merits & I'm not buying it.
Lets all get together to pass the health care plan. HR 3200 sounds a lot better then what we have. Insurance companies don't want it because their profit margin will decrease in favor of we the people. Lets begin and refine as we go.
Congressman Peter Welch's reply to me on health care Bills:
Copied and Pasted 1280 words: Covering the Facts.
August 27, 2009
Dear Mr. Lornitzo,
Thank you for contacting me about H.R. 3200, America's Affordable Health Choices Act. I appreciate hearing from you about this important issue.
I strongly believe that all Americans should have access to quality, affordable health care. Skyrocketing costs and discriminatory insurance company practices have put health coverage out of reach for many Americans while inhibiting the competitiveness of American businesses. The time for reforming our nation's health care system is long overdue.
On July 31, 2009, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce passed H.R. 3200 with my support. This legislation extends health insurance coverage to an additional 37 million Americans, reins in escalating costs, and reforms the health insurance market. Similar to legislation I introduced in the House (HR 2668), it keeps insurance companies honest by creating a public health insurance option so that consumers will be able to choose the plan - public or private - that best meets their needs.
H.R. 3200 embraces a principle I have long supported: that everyone should contribute to their health coverage based on their ability to pay. The bill also provides much-needed assistance to small businesses to help cover employees and reforms the health insurance market by banning discrimination against
Ted Kennedy was doing an important work for the Health Care Reform. Please continue the work for National health care. We have National health care in Sweden and I'm happy for that.
the ammendent for congress to participate in the proposed health care system for us citizens by congress was soundly defeated when presented
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