The New Health Dialogue

It's a snow day here at New America and we're still digging out, so it will be a light blogging day. But it won't be a silent blogging day. Not after we stayed up way past our bedtime watching that Senate vote.

Let's start with Vicki Kennedy's op-ed in Saturday's Washington Post.  She reminded us that Sen. Edward Kennedy knew, and embraced, progress when he saw it. He knew what happens when we let the opportunity to make progress slip away. As it did in the Nixon years.  And in the Clinton years. And in the intervening years of inaction, she wrote, "human suffering only increased."

The Senator's widow acknowledged that Kennedy would have been deeply disappointed by the lack of a robust public option in the Senate bill. But he would have supported legislation that covers more than 30 million Americans, helps small businesses insure their workers, puts us on sounder economic footing -- and creates new rules that insurers have to follow so that people's insurance is there when they and their families most need it.  She didn't mention it in this essay, but the legislation also includes the CLASS act, which will help families take care of the elderly and disabled at home, another cause close to the late Senator's heart.  In short, she said, this legislation's strengths easily outweigh its weaknesses. It meets Kennedy's test and his dream - making health care a right, not a privilege. She concluded:

The bill before Congress will finally deliver on the urgent needs of all Americans. It would make their lives better and do so much good for this country. That, in the end, must be the test of reform. That was always the test for Ted Kennedy. He's not here to urge us not to let this chance slip through our fingers. So I humbly ask his colleagues to finish the work of his life, the work of generations, to allow the vote to go forward and to pass health-care reform now. As Ted always said, when it's finally done, the people will wonder what took so long