Death And Dignity
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Wednesday, August 26, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Health Care: Worse than speaking ill of the dead is exploiting the dead for base political purposes. Would using Ted Kennedy's death to promote socialized medicine backfire for Democrats?
As disliked as Sen. Edward Kennedy was by those who recognize the destructiveness of liberalism, his death late Tuesday night at the famed family home in Hyannis Port, Mass., should touch every American, political persuasion notwithstanding.
Beyond being the brother of two towering politicians gunned down in their youthful primes by assassins who hated America, Ted Kennedy had become patriarch of a family whose loyalty to, and competitiveness with, one another was as fierce as their sky's-the-limit ambition.
That, along with their formidable charm, made it tough for voters to resist falling under the Kennedy spell. Just ask the people of Massachusetts, who let neither Chappaquiddick nor a challenge against a sitting Democratic president in 1980 nor his involvement in the William Kennedy Smith episode in 1991 stop them from re-electing Sen. Kennedy every time.
If the political party the Kennedys called home wishes to prevent a further debasing of their remarkable legacy, it would be wise not to drag memories of the last brother up and down the halls of power. Right now, though, signs suggest Democratic leaders are contemplating exactly that.
In a statement Wednesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asserted that "Ted Kennedy's dream of quality health care for all Americans will be made real this year because of his leadership and his inspiration." And ailing Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia has asked that the health reform bill be named for Ted Kennedy.
In the wake of the popular uprising against it, prominent Democratic senators such as liberal Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin have already administered last rites to the radical health legislation the Obama administration has in mind.
"Nobody is going to bring a bill before Christmas," he told constituents, "and maybe not even then, if this ever happens."
If Democrats think it's been a long, hot summer so far, what with all the "town hells," wait till they see what happens if they try to use Sen. Kennedy's death to bring ObamaCare back to life.
Not only will a lot of better-left-buried facts about the senator's life be dug up; his prominent role a quarter century ago helping the Nixon administration make those little-loved health maintenance organizations such a facet of our medical system will be newly scrutinized.
They will hear reminders that the late senator was the self-described "author of the first HMO bill ever to pass the Senate" and proudly claimed that "HMOs have proven themselves again and again to be effective and efficient mechanisms for delivering health care of the highest quality."
And they will be asked why his more recent ideas about improving health care won't also work out differently from the promises. Better for all concerned to let the Lion of the Senate rest in dignity.
ibdeditorials.com |
