No matter what you think about the health care bill, there is much to be admired in the work of the two generations of progressive activists that fought to get this done. There are numerous lessons to be learned from them. For me, it's always do what is right, even when it is hard, and never, ever give up.
Pretty simple lessons and ones that are at the center of the American dream. Yet so difficult. You have to withstand the name calling. You can't focus on the broken promises, the failed backroom deals, the losing campaigns. Instead you have to walk proudly through the opposition. You have to be prepared, armed with the facts. You also have to understand what people want and what they need, sometimes before they know it.
I'm still not sure that the majority of Americans want universal health care. It's hard to make your neighbor, who has health insurance, understand the plight of your other neighbor who does not. It's challenging to ask people to believe in the long-term benefits, instead of the short-term gain.
Many years ago, after I graduated from college and could no longer be on my mom's insurance, she told me that no matter what I had to have health insurance. In 1993, working on Democratic campaigns, this actually meant buying the cheapest policy imaginable (and hoping that if anything bad happened it happened while I was driving, my accident insurance was better than my health insurance).
After 1994, when Democrats woke up and realized that running on a health care platform while their campaign staffs went without insurance, managers and candidates started providing health insurance. It was never great, but it was something. Then, over the years, I've had amazing policies, lived under national health care (in Australia), bought my own policies from ehealthinsurance.com (instead of COBRA) and never been without. I could live without another pair of shoes or a fancy dinner out each month but I could not survive without health insurance. Again, sometimes it has been a sacrifice and, thankfully, I've never really "needed" it. There were times I didn't even want it. But I've always had it.
Not everyone is so lucky. There are more than 50 million Americans without health insurance. And until today, there were life-time caps on benefits, you could be denied coverage for pre-existing conditions, and there were few, if any, policies that covered preventative health care solutions. In DC thirty-one percent of District residents have not had a colorectal cancer screening, and 16 percent of women over 50 have not had a mammogram in the past two years.
It is these Americans that Sen. Ted Kennedy asked us to care about, over and over again. Through times of economic boom and bust. Through several wars. In times when there were so many other things that seemed so much more important, he continued to fight. He didn't have to; the Kennedy's are American royalty. Why dedicate so much of his life to something he already had? I can only imagine because he saw more than himself when he looked in the mirror each day. He saw not only the weight of a legacy but also the needs of a country.
It wasn't just him, either. So many other leaders stood with him, and, this week, for him. Today, when President Obama signed the health care bill he handed a pen to Vicki Kennedy. I was so sad and so happy at the same time.
What now though? The hard work isn't over yet. It means figuring out a way to engage a whole generation of young women who don't think twice having a choice but now may lose the option of a safe medical procedure, if they are under government health care. For those opposed to the bill, it means fighting with the same vigor to repeal portions of it, perhaps all of it. (I hope they don't succeed but I admire them for trying.)
For those who voted for the bill, who walked with Sen. Kennedy this weekend, it means explaining this vote over and over again and trying to convince Americans that they are better off today than they were yesterday.
This is all going to be hard. Maybe just as hard as passing the bill in the first place. Regardless of which side you're on though, the strategy is pretty clear: do what you think is right and never give up. If you do, the unfinished business can be done.
*In the interest of full disclosure, in 1986 when I traveled to DC as part of a Close Up trip, Sen. Kennedy told me my questions on defense spending were quite clever. Then in 2000, I worked at the DCCC when Rep. Patrick Kennedy was the co-chairman. I am forever a fan of both men.
