Reflections on Senator Kennedy and Healthcare
posted by Heather GartmanThursday, August 27th, 2009
As we all digest the very sad news of the death of Senator Ted Kennedy, I feel there is some irony and injustice in his death. He was the champion of health care reform and led the charge for a long while for universal health. He knew the importance of good health care. The irony is despite the excellent health care he had access to from the Federal program and through his own family wealth, the current health care treatments could not save his life.
This is important to recognize as we grapple with health care reform. We must make sure that research dollars for new treatments are preserved and access to experimental drugs becomes a little easier. Yes it’s absolutely important for all Americans to have access to basic health care and current treatments, but let us all not forget that we must still keep working to find new therapies for all those illneses that do not have cures or for patients where the current treatments fail them. Only once we have these discoveries and treatments will we truly have universal health care.
