HEALTH CARE: How the Lion Helped the Lambs

For me this is a season of hope -- new hope for a justice and fair prosperity for the many, and not just for the few -- new hope.

And this is the cause of my life -- new hope that we will break the old gridlock and guarantee that every American - north, south, east, west, young, old - will have decent, quality health care as a fundamental right and not a privilege. 

 Edward Moore Kennedy, August 25, 2008

Much will be made of the fact that Ted Kennedy died without seeing the "cause of his life" come to fruition. Much should be made, too, of his prodigious accomplishments in expanding access to care, corralling the power of government to combat lethal disease, and striving to have a health system that embraced the sick, the weak, the poor, the hurt, and the vulnerable.

If we were a foreign policy blog, we could go on and on about his accomplishments in war and peace and diplomacy. If we were a legal blog, we could talk at length about his expansion and protection of Americans' rights and the quality of our jurisprudence, the assistance and protection offered to victims of crimes. If we were an education blog, we could expound on how he fought for opportunity and equality for poor children, from early childhood right through college.

But we are a health care blog. And looking at his record on health, it's hard to know where to even start.

Ted Kennedy as a young senator worked to realize the dreams of a slain brother by helping to create Medicare and Medicaid. He went on, a year later, to fund the network of community health clinics that today serves 20 million underserved. 

He helped  draw the battle lines in the "war on cancer." And in ensuing years fought to make sure that everyone had the same access to the care that saved two of his children, one stricken by bone cancer as a teen, the other with lung cancer as a young adult (see video below).

He was a force behind the Ryan White Act, which low-income, uninsured, and underinsured people with HIV/AIDS and their families.

He helped create COBRA, enabling people to continue insurance coverage after losing their job -- and of the Health Portability and Accountabity Act, which lets people keep coverage after changing jobs.

He co-created SCHIP -- the State Children's Health Insurance Program -- covering millions of low income American children. He championed nutrition programs for Women, Infants and Children.

Years of work on health information technology contributed to a significant step toward modernizing our health care system in this year's stimulus package.

He helped lead the fights for the Americans with Disabilities Act, and for job training that helped disabled people attain a degree of independence. He fought for stem cell legislation, and mental health parity. He took on the tobacco industry -- and eventually won.

He rebuilt a damaged public health sector, with both bioterror and pandemic legislation, and if we have a flu epidemic this winter and get through it relatively intact, that too will be part of his legacy.

Above all, he never abandonned his vision of an America where we all mattered. Where we were all cared for. Where we cared for one another.

I wrote a story a few years ago about how many senators suffered terrible personal tragedies, tragedies that belied their image of privilege and protection. And as I interviewed those senators, one after another -- conservative and liberal, young and old -- told me stories about how Teddy Kennedy had been among the first to reach out to them, to commiserate, to console, to give hope.

And that's what he leaves us with. An age-old vision. And a new hope.