Public Health

Media Matters for America wrote:

Media Matters: Storming Camelot: Sen. Kennedy’s death brings out worst from the right

From: Media Matters for America [action@mediamatters.org]
Sent: Friday, August 28, 2009 11:48 PM
To: Tom
Subject: Media Matters: Storming Camelot: Sen. Kennedy’s death brings out worst from the right

On top of the relentless smears from media conservatives, several mainstream press outlets repeated without question the GOP claim that Kennedy’s absence from the health care debate prevented lawmakers from reaching a bipartisan compromise and that had Kennedy been present, agreement on health care reform would have been more likely. Several progressive commentators have identified this talking point as GOP spin intended to disguise Republicans’ obstructionism, with Salon.com’s Joan Walsh, for example, stating that “absolutely no evidence supports that point of view” and washingtonpost.com blogger Ezra Klein noting that Kennedy’s committee has already reported out a bill — a progressive one, at that.

Senator Edward Kennedy, Liberal Lion

It is unbelievable that these Republican Senators who sit on the HELP, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, would come out and say that if Senator Kennedy had been around there would have been a compromise bill. Hell, they were there!

Senator Kennedy and his staff worked tirelessly with committee members to put together a compromise bill beginning as early as March, 2009. The Affordable Health Choices Act was passed out of committee in July and it contained 160 Republican amendments. Republican leaders have since said that these amendments were only “technical” and did not effect the outcome of the bill. When republicans speak of amendments as “technical”, they really mean that these amendments deal with corporate welfare, probably billions of dollars, and shouldn’t concern the voters.

From Sen. Edward Kennedy Working With HELP Committee Members To Introduce, Mark Up Health Care System Overhaul Legislation Before August Recess

Main Category: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance
Also Included In: Public Health
Article Date: 18 Mar 2009 – 3:00 PDT

Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chair Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and a “core group” of five other committee members “will intensify their efforts in coming weeks to ready universal health care legislation for early summer,” CongressDaily reports. Kennedy’s drafting group includes Senate HELP Committee ranking member Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) and committee members Sens. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) and one of three other senators — Sens. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) or Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), who previously were named to working groups focusing on insurance coverage, prevention and quality improvements, respectively.

Kennedy’s staff has been holding stakeholder meetings, which include 20 interest groups, and members and aides from the Senate HELP Committee and the Senate Finance Committee have been holding joint and separate meetings to discuss reform. However, “nothing [from those meetings] has been made available for public consumption,” according to CongressDaily. Kennedy’s drafting group is scheduled to meet up to three times weekly over the next two-and-a-half months and hopes to have legislation ready for mark up by early summer, according to a source familiar with the talks.

Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), claiming that the absence of Kennedy somehow hindered bipartisanship, made this statement on CNN on or about August 27th.

“We would have worked it out [referring to Kennedy]. We would have worked it out on a bipartisan basis,” Hatch, who co-authored numerous health-care bills with Kennedy over the years, said on CNN. “I’ll be happy to work in a bipartisan basis any day, any time … but it’s got to be on something that’s good and not just some partisan hack job.”

Hatch was one of Chairman Kennedy’s “core group” during the mark-up of the AHCA and had every opportunity to have “worked it out” at that time. The truth is, the HELP Committee, more so the bipartisan “core group”, produced a compromise bill in July with a huge number (160) of giveaways to the Republicans. (After skimming the bill, it is clear that these 160 amendments are woven into the language of the bill and impossible to single out for the sake of example.) Orrin Hatch and the rest of the Republicans, to a man, voted against the bill because of the public option called The Community Health Insurance Option. Senator Hatch and others such as John McCain are making the baseless claim that Senator’s Kennedy’s absence is to blame for what is actually obstruction of the public plan, thereby using Senator Kennedy, his illness, and subsequent death, as a scapegoat.

Throughout the mark-up process that saw true bipartisanship, the HELP Committee Democrats worked hand-in-hand with their Republican counterparts to produce the best compromise possible. In Senator Kennedy’s own words,

“I could not be prouder of our Committee. We have done the hard work that the American people sent us here to do. We have considered hundreds of proposals. Where we have been able to reach principled compromise, we have done so. Where we have not been able to resolve our differences, we have treated those with whom we disagree with respect and patience,” Chairman Kennedy said. “As we move from our committee room to the Senate floor, we must continue the search for solutions that unite us, so that the great promise of quality affordable health care for all can be fulfilled.”

May he rest in peace.

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