The Next Phase of the Heathcare Battle Begins
Josh Marshall raises the elephant in the room: that timing and circumstance of Ted Kennedy’s death, and indeed the events of the last year of his life, make it impossible to separate from the politics of the moment.
It’s difficult to miss the almost novelistic way in which the progress of Kennedy’s illness has woven itself in and out of the politics of the last two years. His illness was diagnosed not long after his critical endorsement of Obama in advance of Super Tuesday. And he roused himself to appear at Obama’s nominating convention. His death now comes at the end of what for Democrats has been the cruelest month, six weeks of vitriol and antics which have not only depressed the president’s poll numbers and demoralized many of his supporters but achieved what can only be considered the remarkable feat of entirely sidelining discussion of the chronic insecurity of health insurance coverage for millions of Americans and refocusing it on euthanasia, xenophobia, anti-government paranoia and a sea of misinformation which would be comic if it were not for the seriousness of the underlying issue.
The question I’m asking myself is whether Kennedy’s death will [move] the national political conversation … to something approaching reality and refocusing it on the actual question before the country. Similarly, will it galvanize Democrats? That really is the question.
There’s nothing about Kennedy’s death, that of a man well advanced in years, somber and painful as it is, that should make anyone who disagreed with his policy positions on health care vote for a bill that embodied them. But among the wash of conventional Democrats, sloshing amidst political calculation, the profusion of technical questions and the atmospherics of the moment, will Kennedy’s death serve to arrest thinking for a spell, focus people on the finite quantity of life and the fleeting windows of political opportunity to provide a coalescence, a pivot point toward a conclusion more in line with what Kennedy hoped would be his legacy.
I can’t help but feel, at long last, after all the lies and the hatred, that a man’s death will serve as a turning point, at least among Democrats and the one of two Republican Senators that still have a soul.
I was ruminating on this today. JFK’s death actually enabled civil rights legislation that had been floundering during his life.
I wonder if Teddy will be able to have a similar effect.
The question I’m asking myself is whether Kennedy’s death will [move] the national political conversation … to something approaching reality and refocusing it on the actual question before the country.
I think that would be enough. That’s all we’ve been asking for for weeks — Let’s have reality-based, honest policy debates on things that are actually in any of the bills. Not what Glenn Beck says it says. Not what Betsy McCaughey says it says. What’s actually there. If Sen. Kennedy’s death does nothing but shock the system out of the inanity, insanity, and asininity (is that a word?)it’s been in, I think he’d be happy.
I hope it gives some Democrats some much-needed spine. As someone on Daily Kos said, if they name the bill after Kennedy, it had better be good.
“if they name the bill after Kennedy, it had better be good.”
I am for healthcare reform 100% and a government “option” if one desires it. After 35 years of having healthcare through a employer plan even if I had to pay a portion of it was better then none at all. Being laid off due to the recession for a month now I have no healthcare. Cobra is fine but not on unemployment. I can’t see playing the Kennedy death card for pushing a healthcare plan through. If the bill can’t mustard support on it’s own merits then it must not be worthy. I voted for Obama and it’s time to stop running for president and be one! If he plays the Kennedy death card to push his healthcare reform through it will reveal how weak he really is. If Ted Kennedy was a man of principles, asking other democrats to surrender their principles to honor a dead Kennedy (got bless and rest his soul)reflects weak men and women serving in Washington. American belongs to the principles of freely elected government not to the Kennedy’s legacy. Ted Kennedy is no greater man than Senator John McCain whom I didn’t vote and never will.
Dead Kennedy’s …. great band kilroy
I encourage Republicans to use the bill to appropriately memorialize Teddy Kennedy — by doing to it what last and least of the Kennedy brothers did to Mary Jo.
Oh my…
Tom Carper on WILM right now! ll50Am, 395 9456….. still pushing co ops…