The Late Liberal Lion and Healthcare Champion, Senator Ted Kennedy
The morning of August 26, 2009, news broke that Senator Ted Kennedy had died after a long battle against brain cancer. The loss of the “Liberal Lion” is a great one; we have surely lost one of the good guys–and he was one of the few we had left to begin with. However, while we have surely lost a progressive voice, it is important to recognize and celebrate all that he has accomplished while proudly serving this country and to continue the fights left unfinished that he dedicated his life to.
Senator Ted Kennedy proudly served his country, but he served each and every single person within it, which is something that not many politicians can have on their resume. He truly looked at the people of this country with a nondiscriminatory lens and fought to reverse the injustices that his fellow humans encountered daily. He was a strong supporter of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and later authored amendments strengthening enforcement of key provisions of the Act. He played a central role in fighting discrimination in both the Age Discrimination Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. In 1994, he was the original Senate lead on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, in 1996 he voted against the Defense of Marriage Act, leading opposition to a federal marriage amendment and opposed an anti-marriage measure in Massachusetts, and in 1997, he was the original sponsor of hate crimes legislation. Senator Kennedy also fought to end the funding of abstinence-only education programs, increased funding for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment and was an outspoken supporter for the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.
But what Senator Kennedy is most known for and what he devoted his career to is ensuring that each and every American citizen has the right to affordable health care. He first introduced a bill calling for universal health care coverage in 1970 and over the next four decades, he never ceased in his efforts to make his bill a reality for all Americans without adequate access to health care they need. This past summer Senator Kennedy wrote an essay on the need for universal, affordable health care services, appropriately titled ‘The Cause of My Life.’
It is a key reason that I defied my illness last summer to speak at the Democratic convention in Denver — to support Barack Obama, but also to make sure, as I said, “that we will break the old gridlock and guarantee that every American…will have decent, quality health care as a fundamental right and not just a privilege.” For four decades I have carried this cause — from the floor of the United States Senate to every part of this country. It has never been merely a question of policy; it goes to the heart of my belief in a just society. Now the issue has more meaning for me — and more urgency — than ever before. But it’s always been deeply personal, because the importance of health care has been a recurrent lesson throughout most of my 77 years.
Health care reform is about people, which I have recently written about here entitled with the same sentiment and explaining my own horrific story with the health care industry and my inability to receive the health care I desperately need because of my lack of finances and no one willing to help in sight. As I also wrote in that post–This country will inevitably always be comprised of the have’s and the have not’s, but access to health care that people so desperately need should never be lumped into those categories. Senator Kennedy felt the same way and fought throughout his career in hopes of people like me and people like you being able to receive the health care that we not just need, but that we deserve.
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