http://www.democracynow.org/2009/8/27/nation_mourns_passing_of_sen_ted
Critical Excerpt on Universal, Medicare style health care demand of
Senator Kennedy.
Democracy Now: August 27, 2009
AMY GOODMAN: In a few minutes, we'll go to Boston to discuss how the state
of Massachusetts will choose a successor to Kennedy and the impact this will
have on the healthcare debate. But first we want to play two excerpts of
Senator Kennedy in his own words, discussing the state of the nation's
healthcare system. The first comes from a 1971 newscast on CBS anchored by
Walter Cronkite.
WALTER CRONKITE: President Nixon today pledged his administration to a new
national health plan that would benefit not only patients but also doctors
and citizens who enjoy good health. But beating him to the punch, Senator
Edward Kennedy earlier proposed an alternate plan that goes much further
than the administration. Daniel Schorr offers a comparison of these two
health plans.
DANIEL SCHORR: President Nixon has said that this will be health year, the
year to tackle what he's called the massive crisis of spiraling costs and
overstrained medical resources. Today the President pitted a low-key,
low-budget plan to expand private insurance coverage against the more
drastic proposals in Congress paced by the labor-supported Kennedy plan for
cradle-to-grave federal health insurance for all Americans.
RICHARD NIXON: I am proposing today a new national health strategy. It helps
more people pay for care, but it also expands the supply of health services
and makes them more efficient. It emphasizes keeping people well, not just
making people well.
The purpose of this program is simply this: I want America to have the
finest healthcare in the world, and I want every American to be able to have
that care when he needs it.
SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY: The President's program, as announced today as a
national health partnership program, I believe is really a partnership
program that will provide billions of dollars to the health insurance
companies. It's really a partnership between the administration and the
insurance companies. It's not a partnership between the patients and the
doctors in this nation.
AMY GOODMAN: Senator Ted Kennedy speaking with Richard Nixon on CBS News in
1971 in a Walter Cronkite-anchored program. Well, this is Senator Kennedy
speaking in Montgomery, Pennsylvania, in April, 2008, one month before he
was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor.
SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY: But it brings me back, my friends, to another
thought, and that is the whole issue of health insurance and universal
coverage. It has been the passion of my life. It has been the passion of my
life.
And it has been the passion of my life since the earliest days of my life,
when we had been exposed to a sister with mental retardation and we saw the
special kinds of care that she needed and the attention that she took; seven
months in a hospital after a plane crash; three children, two of which have
had cancer, cancer of the lungs; son who lost a leg to cancer as a young
child. I was exposed to really the challenges of healthcare, and I was
always also exposed to the very best in healthcare.
And one of the searing memories in my life is being in a children's
hospital in Boston with my son who had lost his leg to cancer, and he was
under a regime that was going to take three days of treatment every three
weeks for two years in order to be able to be in this process or this
system, this treatment, that offered the best opportunity. And it was being
paid for, since it was an experimental, by NIH. And they paid for probably
the first four months that I was in that particular regime. And after that,
it had demonstrated some success, and they stopped the payments.
But for all the other families, they didn't have the kind of health
insurance that that had, with $3,000 for every family, every three weeks.
And I listened to these families, whose had-their children had the same kind
of affliction that my child had. And they said, "Look, we've sold our house.
We have the $30,000. We have $20,000. We're able to afford it for three
months, for four months, for five months. What kind of chance does my child
have to be able to survive?"
I knew that my child was going to have the best, because I had the health
insurance of the United States Senate. And I knew that no one, no parent, no
parent, in that hospital had the kind of coverage that I had. That kind of
choice for any parent in this country is absolutely unacceptable and wrong,
my friends.
And I can tell you this: when every member of the United States Senate
comes in and signed into the United States Senate, they signed a little card
in two places, and one is their signature for their salary, and the other is
for their health insurance. Their health insurance. Now, Senator Brown of
Ohio, to his credit, will not accept it until the people of Ohio get it.
Every other member of the United States Senate-every other member of the
United States Senate has accepted it. And for the fifteen times that I have
fought on the floor of the United States Senate that we ought to have
universal comprehensive coverage and to listen to those voices on the other
side that have universal and comprehensive coverage and say, "No, it is not
time. We can't afford it. It's the wrong bill at the wrong time"-my friends,
if that health insurance is good enough for the members of the Congress of
the United States and good enough for the President of the United States,
it's
good enough for everybody in Montgomery County, everyone in Pennsylvania,
and everyone across this country.
AMY GOODMAN: The late Senator Ted Kennedy speaking in April 2008 in
Pennsylvania
Critical Excerpt on Universal, Medicare style health care demand of
Senator Kennedy.
Democracy Now: August 27, 2009
AMY GOODMAN: In a few minutes, we'll go to Boston to discuss how the state
of Massachusetts will choose a successor to Kennedy and the impact this will
have on the healthcare debate. But first we want to play two excerpts of
Senator Kennedy in his own words, discussing the state of the nation's
healthcare system. The first comes from a 1971 newscast on CBS anchored by
Walter Cronkite.
WALTER CRONKITE: President Nixon today pledged his administration to a new
national health plan that would benefit not only patients but also doctors
and citizens who enjoy good health. But beating him to the punch, Senator
Edward Kennedy earlier proposed an alternate plan that goes much further
than the administration. Daniel Schorr offers a comparison of these two
health plans.
DANIEL SCHORR: President Nixon has said that this will be health year, the
year to tackle what he's called the massive crisis of spiraling costs and
overstrained medical resources. Today the President pitted a low-key,
low-budget plan to expand private insurance coverage against the more
drastic proposals in Congress paced by the labor-supported Kennedy plan for
cradle-to-grave federal health insurance for all Americans.
RICHARD NIXON: I am proposing today a new national health strategy. It helps
more people pay for care, but it also expands the supply of health services
and makes them more efficient. It emphasizes keeping people well, not just
making people well.
The purpose of this program is simply this: I want America to have the
finest healthcare in the world, and I want every American to be able to have
that care when he needs it.
SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY: The President's program, as announced today as a
national health partnership program, I believe is really a partnership
program that will provide billions of dollars to the health insurance
companies. It's really a partnership between the administration and the
insurance companies. It's not a partnership between the patients and the
doctors in this nation.
AMY GOODMAN: Senator Ted Kennedy speaking with Richard Nixon on CBS News in
1971 in a Walter Cronkite-anchored program. Well, this is Senator Kennedy
speaking in Montgomery, Pennsylvania, in April, 2008, one month before he
was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor.
SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY: But it brings me back, my friends, to another
thought, and that is the whole issue of health insurance and universal
coverage. It has been the passion of my life. It has been the passion of my
life.
And it has been the passion of my life since the earliest days of my life,
when we had been exposed to a sister with mental retardation and we saw the
special kinds of care that she needed and the attention that she took; seven
months in a hospital after a plane crash; three children, two of which have
had cancer, cancer of the lungs; son who lost a leg to cancer as a young
child. I was exposed to really the challenges of healthcare, and I was
always also exposed to the very best in healthcare.
And one of the searing memories in my life is being in a children's
hospital in Boston with my son who had lost his leg to cancer, and he was
under a regime that was going to take three days of treatment every three
weeks for two years in order to be able to be in this process or this
system, this treatment, that offered the best opportunity. And it was being
paid for, since it was an experimental, by NIH. And they paid for probably
the first four months that I was in that particular regime. And after that,
it had demonstrated some success, and they stopped the payments.
But for all the other families, they didn't have the kind of health
insurance that that had, with $3,000 for every family, every three weeks.
And I listened to these families, whose had-their children had the same kind
of affliction that my child had. And they said, "Look, we've sold our house.
We have the $30,000. We have $20,000. We're able to afford it for three
months, for four months, for five months. What kind of chance does my child
have to be able to survive?"
I knew that my child was going to have the best, because I had the health
insurance of the United States Senate. And I knew that no one, no parent, no
parent, in that hospital had the kind of coverage that I had. That kind of
choice for any parent in this country is absolutely unacceptable and wrong,
my friends.
And I can tell you this: when every member of the United States Senate
comes in and signed into the United States Senate, they signed a little card
in two places, and one is their signature for their salary, and the other is
for their health insurance. Their health insurance. Now, Senator Brown of
Ohio, to his credit, will not accept it until the people of Ohio get it.
Every other member of the United States Senate-every other member of the
United States Senate has accepted it. And for the fifteen times that I have
fought on the floor of the United States Senate that we ought to have
universal comprehensive coverage and to listen to those voices on the other
side that have universal and comprehensive coverage and say, "No, it is not
time. We can't afford it. It's the wrong bill at the wrong time"-my friends,
if that health insurance is good enough for the members of the Congress of
the United States and good enough for the President of the United States,
it's
good enough for everybody in Montgomery County, everyone in Pennsylvania,
and everyone across this country.
AMY GOODMAN: The late Senator Ted Kennedy speaking in April 2008 in
Pennsylvania
***
----- Original Message -----
From: Lgartt@aol.com
CONNECT THE DOTS Mon. 7 AM replay of Ted Kennedy Interview 2007
90.7 FM Los Angeles, 98;7 Santa Barbara, or log on after it airs using the link below:
We'll play our interview with our good friend Ted Kennedy from 2007. In it Kennedy calls his vote against the Iraq war "the proudest act of his career". He excoriates the last administration. Why then didn't he support the impeachment of Bush? For a very good reason. He explains.
Two supporters of Kennedy's passions for Peace and Universal Healthcare join us as well: Cindy Sheehan now at Martha's Vineyard where she's petitioning President Obama to get us out of Afghanistan.
and Maxine Waters reiterates her demand and the pledge of 65 of her Congressional colleagues not to pass a Healthcare Bill without for a viable Public Option.
And singer song writer Keaton Simons dedicates a beautiful new Peace song which he just performed at the United Nations to Ted Kennedy whom he met at 10 yrs. old. That song and story too, Monday from 7 to 8AM on Connect the Dots.
Lila Garrett (Host of CONNECT THE DOTS)
KPFK 90.7 FM in LA; 98.7 Santa Barbara
Airs Mondays from 7AM to 8AM.
To pod cast or download the broadcast just use this link:
http://archive.kpfk.org/parchive/index.php?shokey=ctd
Each show is on line for three months.
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