Senator Ted Kennedy Would Have Voted For Senate Health Bill

While I understand Howard Dean’s passion about the reasons he disagrees with the Senate health bill soon to be considered, I absolutely disagree with his desire to see the bill killed.  His thinking on this matter is short-sighted by a mile.

There is never a perfect piece of legislation.  Lord knows that the current health bill now set for a vote before Christmas would be far superior if it had a firm public option in it.  But as with every bill there is the ‘half-a-loaf’ argument that needs consideration. 

For decades Senator Ted Kennedy championed health care concerns in this nation.  He would be the first to say that you take a whack at the issue, fight hard, and then take the best bill that can be passed and signed into law.  Then you get back into the legislative committees and draft another bill to fight for in order to strengthen what already has been passed.  That is the hard work that great senators like Kennedy engaged in every day of their careers.

Ted Kennedy would have thought, as we all now do, that this process with President Obama, and the Democratic Congress should have produced a stronger bill.  But he also would have known that at the end of the political process the best of what was able to be created was deserving of a vote.

Back in 1966 when Senator Kennedy was first starting to feel his own deep passion over creating a better health care system in America he started with a bill to create community health centers. 

“In 1966, I visited the Columbia Point Neighborhood Health Center in Boston; it was a pilot project providing health services to low-income families in the two-floor office of an apartment building. I saw mothers in rocking chairs, tending their children in a warm and welcoming setting. They told me this was the first time they could get basic care without spending hours on public transportation and in hospital waiting rooms. I authored legislation, which passed a few months later, establishing the network of community health centers that are all around America today.”

It was not the perfect end-all piece of legislation, but it was a step in the right direction.  It kicked the ball down the field, and allowed for more legislation and ideas to be advanced in the future.  That is how the political process works.

While the issue of health care has taken far too long to be honestly addressed in this nation, and we all know much more work needs to be done, I am confident that had Ted Kennedy been able to do so he would be voting for the measure now before the Senate.  While we can argue the convictions of this Senator or that Representative when it comes to health care in a political context at election time, Kennedy would understand that this is the time of policy making and doing what is able to be done for the American people.  That is the standard of leadership that Howard Dean, sadly, seems to be missing.

Senator Kennedy would be voting yes on the health care bill.