Will there be an Edward M. Kennedy Health Care Act 2009?

Aug 26th, 2009 | By | Category: In Brief
The Kennedy clan gather for a 1938 family photo at Hyannis Port, Mass. Seated from left are Eunice, Jean, Edward on the lap of his father, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., Patricia and Kathleen. Standing from left are Rosemary, Robert, John, Rose and Joseph Jr. (Boston Globe).

The Kennedy clan gather for a 1938 family photo at Hyannis Port, Mass. Seated from left are Eunice, Jean, Edward on the lap of his father, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., Patricia and Kathleen. Standing from left are Rosemary, Robert, John, Rose and Joseph Jr. (Boston Globe).

If you share any degree of progressive political sympathies, almost anywhere, it is hard not to be saddened by the death of US Senator Edward M. Kennedy late last night.

He has been called “a Rabelaisian figure.” And he no doubt had his share of human foibles, not the least of which was the 1969 accident at Chappaquiddick Island on Martha’s Vineyard.

He was also the youngest of the nine children of Joseph P. and Rose Kennedy. His brother Jack,  who became president in 1961, was 14 years older. There is a 1938 family photo with the six-year-old “Teddy” on his father’s knee. It seems to hint that the youngest child was spoiled. And perhaps he stayed that way too long into adulthood?

Yet, almost like a character from Shakespeare, Edward M. Kennedy’s ultimate achievement was to rise to the occasion after the tragic assassinations of his two older brothers in the 1960s.  He picked up the torch of the progressive democracy in America  they themselves had almost only accidentally come to personify. He became America’s “liberal lion” when someone was desperately needed to play the role. And he grew into it with increasing aplomb.

Teddy and his friend Barack ... in the White House at last.

Teddy and his friend Barack ... in the White House at last.

Teddy Kennedy’s final contribution to democracy in America was to support Barack Obama as the first African-American president. And at the current juncture in the history of the republic Senator Kennedy’s colleagues ought to band together and pay him a final, hard-earned tribute by passing some kind of practical, progressive document known as the Edward M. Kennedy Health Care Act 2009.

An extreme political realist might say this could never happen. Whatever health care bill does get passed will need the support of too many senators who did not really like Senator Kennedy. In the end he was a partisan Democrat. Naming the embryonic US health care bill after him would make it appear too partisan. Up here in Canada at least, it nonetheless still seems the right thing to do.

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