We don't know. We do know, however, as his biographer Adam Clymer explained last week, that for over 40 years perseverance was a key weapon in the arsenal he deployed in his fight to achieve the goal of universal health care coverage in the U.S. "Perseverance is critical in a body [the Senate] configured for delay and inaction," Clymer says.
What are the results of this perseverance? The Massachusetts Senator didn't live to see enactment of comprehensive health care reform, what he called the "cause of my life" , but in the past 25 years alone he authored or shepherded several pieces of legislation that have expanded health care access or security. Kaiser Health News has compiled a list of these legislative achievements--note these highlights:
- COBRA continuation coverage, introduced by the Senator and signed by President Reagan in 1986, guarantees 18 months of employer-provided insurance to workers who lose their jobs;
- Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, co-sponsored by Kennedy and former Republican Senator from Kansas Nancy Kassebaum, provides, among other things, increased protection from preexisting condition exclusions for workers changing jobs; and
- The State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), which provides health insurance for millions of otherwise uninsured children, championed by Kennedy in 1997 along with Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah).
Check out the whole list here. It's an impressive one.
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