Until last year, Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s health care bill was a bill known as Medicare for All

Let's Pass Ted Kennedy's Health Plan
by Roger Hickey

Let’s get a few things straight:

Until last year, Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s health care bill (co-authored with with Rep. John Dingell) was a bill known as Medicare for All*. Not expensive private insurance for some, but Medicare for All.

*http://kennedy.senate.gov/newsroom/press_release.cfm?id=B30A5C7B-35AC-4CC9-8192-1B1E50FC8356

Senator Kennedy encouraged candidate and then President Obama to make health care for all his first priority -- during the campaign and as he took office.

And Ted Kennedy remained in charge as his HELP (Health, Education and Labor and Pension) Committee wrote -- and then passed -- a new health care bill with a strong public insurance option for those who want it.

I feel the need to remind people of all this because conservatives, and especially Republican Senators, are trying to promote the idea that if only Ted Kennedy were still actively involved in the health care reform effort, he could have gotten the Democrats to fold and embrace a weakened “bi-partisan” compromised health reform strategy. And some are urging that the best tribute we could construct to the great man’s memory is to pass such a watered-down health bill that could win the support of a large number of conservative Republicans.

Media Matters has done a good job of tracking and responding to the crocodile tears of Republicans, keying off of a Politico obituary that repeats the conservative spin that “without Kennedy, Democrats were less willing to make the concessions needed for true compromise.” But whatever Politico’s role, their journalism certainly picked up on the boldly outrageous statements of important conservatives. One by one, Media Matters’ quotes Republicans from Orin Hatch to John McCain, lamenting that Kennedy’s passing has deprived them all of a “reasonable” Democrat who would have won Republican votes by getting rid of the public plan or making the cost of “reform” dramatically smaller.

Let’s get another thing clear:

Republicans don’t want a deal. They want to kill health reform.

more here...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/roger-hickey/lets-pass-ted-kennedys-he_b_272340.html