Kennedy - I'm dying so we should reform healthcare.

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Chardok
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Kennedy - I'm dying so we should reform healthcare.

Post by Chardok »

from Here
Yahoo! News wrote:WASHINGTON – An ailing Sen. Edward Kennedy is trying to lay the groundwork for a breakthrough on health care reform next year, though many believe the enormous undertaking has been made even more difficult by the troubled economy.

Kennedy, aides say, has held several video conferences with lawmakers and staff in recent months as he fights from home to overcome brain cancer. His staff has held more than a dozen meetings in recent weeks with various advocacy and interest groups that will help influence the debate.

"We're carrying it out in his absence, but this is his doing," said an aide who was not identified because he was not authorized to speak publicly. "He's in constant touch with leaders in this effort. This is Senator Kennedy at the helm." The story was first reported by The Washington Times.

Kennedy doesn't want to repeat the steps that some say doomed health care reform under former President Clinton. That means acting quickly when Congress returns to Washington after the election and the holidays.

"There were at least two major factors in the failure of the '93 effort," the aide said. "One was jurisdictional fracturing within the Congress and the other was the time after the inauguration to get a proposal together. Senator Kennedy's analysis is that we need to avoid both of those features."

Kennedy is chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. Sen. Barack Obama's health care plan will be the starting point in Kennedy's efforts. That's a big assumption given that the presidential race is far from over. The Obama plan features many changes that Massachusetts enacted in 2006, such as greater use of government subsidies to help people afford coverage. However, Obama would not require adults to buy health insurance, as Massachusetts did. Obama does have a requirement that children be insured.

Aides would not say where there has been agreement and disagreement among the various interest groups participating in the meetings.

Health care changes under both presidential candidates would be expensive, and the federal government is expected to generate an enormous deficit next year even without incorporating those changes. However, Obama is not letting economic woes deter him.

"It's not a question of arithmetic or accounting, it's a question of priorities," an aide said. "When AIG needs the money, somehow the money is found. When Freddie and Fannie need it, somehow the money is found. The theory is they're too big to fail. It can certainly be argued that the health care system is too big to fail, but it's failing for millions of people every day."

Kennedy, 76, underwent a risky, 3 1/2-hour surgery in June to remove as much of a tumor as possible. He has been steadily increasing his public activity since undergoing six weeks of chemotherapy and radiation treatment.
I call this the Reeve effect. Maddox put it perfectly. No one gives a fuck about anything until it affects them personally. Cram it up your ass, Teddy - we needed this long before now.
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Re: Kennedy - I'm dying so we should reform healthcare.

Post by General Zod »

With Bush the wonderchimp vetoing anything and everything, I'd have been amazed if he could have passed it before now even if he'd done everything possible towards pushing it through.
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Re: Kennedy - I'm dying so we should reform healthcare.

Post by Havok »

That's usually how it works Char. Micheal J Fox did the same thing for Parkinson's.
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Re: Kennedy - I'm dying so we should reform healthcare.

Post by Rogue 9 »

How would it help Kennedy? He's certainly rich enough to pay for healthcare on his own, to say nothing of the Congressional insurance plan. If he can't buy the necessary healthcare for himself, then it's likely because it doesn't exist, not because he can't pay for it.
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Re: Kennedy - I'm dying so we should reform healthcare.

Post by Grand Admiral Thrawn »

Chardok wrote:
I call this the Reeve effect. Maddox put it perfectly. No one gives a fuck about anything until it affects them personally. Cram it up your ass, Teddy - we needed this long before now.
Can you do 10 seconds of fucking research before you start slandering someone? Not only does this not effect Kennedy (he's rich and has already has public health care) but he did give a fuck about health care already (look up SCHIP).
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Re: Kennedy - I'm dying so we should reform healthcare.

Post by Solauren »

Kennedy is pushing for a legacy here, not help.
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Re: Kennedy - I'm dying so we should reform healthcare.

Post by Rahvin »

Even putting aside the fact that Kennedy did care about healthcare before his own illness, it is a fact that it often requires personal experience to overcome human apathy and ignorance. The fact is, many people in the US haven't thought healthcare was a big problem until recently, becasue they were healthy. The problems have been getting worse for long enough at this point that almost everyone has either felt the effects or knows someone who has, and it took that direct experience with how fucked up our system is to realize that US healthcare only works if you're healthy or incredibly rich.

For example, I intellectually knew that HIV/AIDS was a problem, but I didn't honestly think about it very much until someone close to me contracted the virus. I thought it was relatively "under control" in terms of infection rates and mortalities in the US, adn that it was now primarily a problem in Africa where "using a condom" means "nail the latex charm over your bed to protect you from the curse." I would never have known that HIV infection in the US is rising at such a degree (especially among heterosexuals, and I'm not talking about transfusions or needle-sharers), or have understood exactly what's necessary to keep such a person from developing full AIDS, and what it really means for those people that we don't have universal healthcare.

I'm relatively healthy. I can get private coverage, even if it does cost an arm and a leg now. Many people can't even if they could otherwise afford coverage.

Public awareness of an issue requires first- or second-hand experience in the form of actual people who have felt the effects of the system standing up and making everyone pay attention. Base statistics don't do anything for the vast majority of people. Friends, family and acquaintances suffering mean a lot. It's unfortunate, but it's true.

I'm certainly not going to complain about someone who takes up a cause only after it directly affects them. I'd prefer it if they cared beforehand, but when it comes to actually making meaningful change and fixing the goddamned problem, better late than never.
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Re: Kennedy - I'm dying so we should reform healthcare.

Post by SirNitram »

Rogue 9 wrote:How would it help Kennedy? He's certainly rich enough to pay for healthcare on his own, to say nothing of the Congressional insurance plan. If he can't buy the necessary healthcare for himself, then it's likely because it doesn't exist, not because he can't pay for it.
Congratulations, you see through the farcical attempt to politicize ensuring good healthcare for people.
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Re: Kennedy - I'm dying so we should reform healthcare.

Post by Metatwaddle »

Because this is totally the first time Kennedy has ever cared about health care! And as a U.S. senator, he definitely wouldn't have had the best coverage money could buy already!
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Re: Kennedy - I'm dying so we should reform healthcare.

Post by Patrick Degan »

Chardok wrote:
I call this the Reeve effect. Maddox put it perfectly. No one gives a fuck about anything until it affects them personally. Cram it up your ass, Teddy - we needed this long before now.
Um, universal health care (or reform) has been a Ted Kennedy cause for decades now. He was pushing for it in the 80s and even before that.
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Re: Kennedy - I'm dying so we should reform healthcare.

Post by The Yosemite Bear »

Solauren wrote:Kennedy is pushing for a legacy here, not help.

After all he's basically known as the George W. Bush of the Kennedy Clan. He's not one of the three superstars who were killed before their time. Hell he's the fuck up who got his pregnant staffer killed because of his own DUI, written up for more sexual harrassment beefs from female interns, can't keep his pants on, drunken, overwieght failure, whose forever trapped in the shadows of Joe jr., Jack, & Robert. But no he's always cared about health care and stuff like that.
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