Kennedy galvanises fight to reform US healthcare.

I was shocked when Ted Kennedy died to read some of the comments people made on Michelle Malkin's blog; despite her pleas for people to keep things civil.

It's hard for a Brit to remember that, until the arrival of Clinton, Kennedy was a lightening rod for everything that Republicans loathe about Democrats.

One of Malkin's commenters said that the plans to introduce universal healthcare in the US would now be named after Kennedy and, I thought, actually that's a very good idea.

Well, it now turns out that lots of people think so. And the right wingers are very keen to stop that from happenning.

"The left is exploiting him – his death and his legacy – and they are going to do it, as predicted, to push healthcare through," the conservative talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh warned his listeners.

Is it exploiting someone if one uses their death to advance a cause that they always believed in? Couldn't that also be seen as granting someone's death bed wish? There is no-one on Earth who could say that Kennedy didn't want this bill passed and, as his missing vote complicates things, isn't naming the bill after him a way of commemorating a lifetime spent advancing liberal causes and a small way to make up for the fact that he himself can't vote for this bill?

"You've heard of 'Win one for the Gipper'?" noted Ralph Neas, the head of the National Coalition on Healthcare, referring to the old refrain of Ronald Reagan fans. "There is going to be an atmosphere of 'Win one for Teddy'."

It will have been the greatest regret of Senator Kennedy, who died of brain cancer on Tuesday at age 77, that he did not live to see his great dream of universal healthcare realised.

In many ways the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed by Lyndon B Johnson on the basis that the assassinated JFK would have wanted it done, and on the huge wave of public emotion which surrounded his death. So, I see nothing wrong in his younger brother's death being used to advance the cause of universal healthcare; I see it as a commemoration of a lifetime fighting for causes which help working class Americans.

Teddy Kennedy would certainly not have objected to his name being attached to such a bill; indeed, he would have seen that as a great honour.

So, I - for one - see no reason why the Democrats shouldn't do just that and push this bill through.

People could do this and honestly say, "It's what he would have wanted."

Click title for full article.

Tags: Teddy Kennedy, universal healthcare