The Wit and Wisdom of Ted Kennedy - Bill Adler [26]
—Speech, June 30, 1977
For decades the labor movement has stood as a bulwark for freedom and democracy against tyranny around the world. The labor movement was essential in making America a strong society. Its advocacy of progressive legislation has brought immense benefits to all Americans, whether or not they have a union card.
—Statement on the North American Free Trade
Agreement, November 20, 1993
HEALTH CARE:
SENATOR KENNEDY’S
LAST GREAT CHALLENGE
FINDING A WAY TO PROVIDE ALL AMERICANS WITH ACCESS to high quality health care has been something Ted Kennedy advocated from his very first term in the U.S. Senate in 1962. As the years went by and each proposal to accomplish the goal met with defeat, his determination increased. But the cause was still one among many; it did not become the central crusade of his life until 1973, when his twelve-year-old son Teddy, Jr. was stricken with cancer.
All at once he was plunged into a world of life-or-death medical decisions, grueling treatment schedules, and countless hours spent in waiting rooms with other parents of young cancer patients. He was there as a parent, not a politician, but the sounds and scenes in those waiting rooms stayed with him as no fact-finding tour or hearings on the state of health care could ever have done. Teddy, Jr. was fortunate to be admitted into an experimental treatment program that was highly promising for children with his form of cancer—at a cost of three thousand dollars per treatment. Three times per week for two years. While the protocol was still in the clinical trial phase, the government paid the bill; however, once the treatment was proven effective, the families were made to pick up the costs. In most cases their private insurance companies simply refused to pay.
So he saw many of these parents, who by this time he had come to know quite well, taking out second mortgages, or even forced to sell their homes. Some lost their jobs—and their health insurance—due to the time spent shuttling a sick child back and forth to the hospital for treatment. Bankruptcy and financial ruin loomed for people just like him, parents willing to do anything to save a child’s life, but unlike him in their middle-class resources. From that point on, “the battle [for health care] had my complete attention.”
And that is the way it remained to the last day of his life.
While I will not see the victory, I was able to look forward and know that we will—yes, we will—fulfill the promise of health care in America as a right and not a privilege.
—Letter to President Obama, May 12, 2009
What we face is, above all, a moral issue; that at stake are not just the details of policy, but fundamental principles of social justice and the character of our country.
—Letter to President Obama, May 12, 2009.
These were the lines directly quoted by
the President in his address to the nation
on health care reform, September 10, 2009
For me this is a season of hope, new hope for a justice and fair prosperity for the many, and not just for the few—new hope. And this is the cause of my life—new hope that we will break the old gridlock and guarantee that every American—North, South, East, West, young, old—will have decent, quality health care as a fundamental right and not a privilege.
—Democratic National Convention,
August 12, 1980
Thirty-one years ago this summer, Dr. Martin Luther King led the March on Washington to demand basic human rights for all Americans. Today we have the chance to fulfill another part of that dream, by making health care a basic right.
—Statement on health care reform, July 28, 1994
If we deny the finest health care to any citizens, we deny the value of their lives. They become slaves of unnecessary suffering and disability. The promise of a beautiful society acquires a hollow ring.