Ted Kennedy’s Death a NewObstacle to Health Care Reform

Although Barack Obama is working hard to push through his reform of the American health care system, certain commentators point out – pragmatically – that the death of Sen. Ted Kennedy could make things even more difficult. A top-level expert in the inner workings of the Senate, the last of the Kennedy brothers was a past master at negotiating compromises with his Republican colleagues. And health care reform was the cause of his life.

It was his “last goal,” as the New York Times pointed out in February, and even one of his reasons for supporting President Obama’s run for the presidency. “The cause of my life,” he said at the Democratic Convention in August 2008. “ . . . Most major pieces of social legislation . . . bore the imprint of Sen. Edward ‘Ted’ Kennedy,” said The Christian Science Monitor, summarizing the career of this political “giant.” He gave his first speech on health care in 1969, according to the journal’s web site. With the diagnosis of cancer for his children, and with his own illness, he had become, in the judgment of the New York Times, “the face of his own issue.”

His Last Wish

But since he started having seizures, Kennedy had to follow the project’s progress – and setbacks – from a distance. Many people regretted that he wasn’t there to help bring about a compromise and win a few Republicans over to his side. Some still hoped that the Republican senators would grant him this reform as a sort of “dying wish,” the New York Times said in July.

Now that he’s no longer here, “Who will it be for health care reform?” asks James Ridgeway. For the Mother Jones editorial writer, Ted Kennedy was nothing more or less than the last of the liberal senators, the only one who could get these kinds of bills through. If he’d been in good health, he “would be kicking Republican asses,” to get them to vote for the bill, wagers salon.com editorial writer, Joan Walsh.

More pragmatic, Alex Koppelman, a political writer for salon.com, points out that Ted Kennedy’s vote was crucial to simply getting the bill to pass the Senate. With 60 senators on their side, the Democrats could avoid a Republican filibuster (parliamentary obstruction) by citing the bill’s urgency. With 59 votes, the Democrats may be forced to listen to their Republican colleagues, for as long as the Republicans wish. And Massachusetts law (Ted Kennedy’s state) does not allow for a senator to be appointed for the interim. The “Lion” tried, in early July, to obtain an exception to this rule, Time magazine reported. He sent a letter to the governor of Massachusetts, asking him to find a temporary replacement, should his Senate seat become vacant. According to Kennedy, it was a “vital” issue.