Kennedy leads renewed effort on universal healthcare
Senator Edward M. Kennedy's office has begun convening a series of meetings involving a wide array of healthcare specialists to begin laying the groundwork for a new attempt to provide universal healthcare, according to participants.
The discussions signal that Kennedy, who instructed aides to begin holding the meetings while he is in Massachusetts undergoing treatment for brain cancer, intends to work vigorously to build bipartisan support for a major healthcare initiative when he returns to Washington in the fall.
Those involved in the discussions said Kennedy believes it is extremely important to move as quickly as possible on overhauling the healthcare system after the next president takes office in January in order to capitalize on the momentum behind a new administration.
Kennedy was an early endorser of Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee who is also a member of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, which Kennedy chairs.
Obama's Senate staff has attended the roundtable discussions. If Obama is elected, Kennedy's effort to identify points of agreement among senators could smooth the way for the new administration to press ahead on universal healthcare, which Obama has promised to implement within four years.
The last time a national healthcare plan was attempted, under President Clinton in 1993, the presidential panel charged with devising a proposal was widely criticized for not consulting enough with Congress, and protracted disagreements erupted, delaying its progress for months and ultimately resulting in its demise. Kennedy's effort appears to be designed to identify areas of common ground between Democrats and Republicans, business and labor, providers and insurers, and others before the new president takes office.
"The senator is trying to learn from health reform attempts in the past and to build a fair amount of consensus among his Senate colleagues, House colleagues, and the Obama campaign . . . and find a strategy that could carry with some momentum into the new administration," said Dr. Jay Himmelstein, a health policy specialist at University of Massachusetts Medical School and a former Kennedy staff member who has been involved in the talks.
The initiative also suggests that Kennedy, who has made healthcare his signature issue in his 45-year Senate career and who is fighting an aggressive brain tumor, is considering his legacy as a new administration arrives in Washington - a moment many see as the best chance for widespread changes in the healthcare system in 15 years.
"You have got to think this will be the Ted Kennedy Health Reform Act, because he's a beloved figure and he's championed the issue for so long," said John Rother, policy director for the AARP, which has been involved in the discussions. "There are a lot of unknowns right now, but what we do know obviously is he is very close to Obama, and he also has quite a network of health policy experts that he can draw from.Melissa Wagoner, spokeswoman for Kennedy, added that "Making sure each American has access to quality, affordable healthcare is the cause of Senator Kennedy's life."
Kennedy played a critical role in helping Massachusetts create a healthcare overhaul proposal in 2006 by aiding the state in obtaining the federal money needed to subsidize it. It appears he is now looking to Massachusetts to help shape the debate in Washington. Earlier this year, Kennedy recruited John McDonough, executive director of Health Care For All in Boston and a major player in the Massachusetts healthcare overhaul debate, to lead the new health initiative.
Aides to Kennedy have also assembled a network of Massachusetts advisers, including healthcare lawyers, economists, nonprofit leaders, doctors, and health insurers who may be asked to work on specific aspects of a national plan. At a recent meeting in Boston, the group discussed how different elements of the Massachusetts approach might work on a national level.
Rob Restuccia, executive director of the national healthcare advocacy group Community Catalyst and one of those who attended, said the group considered questions such as whether the Massachusetts Health Connector, the quasi-public entity that helps uninsured people obtain coverage, might be structured on a national level.
"I believe we will have a great story to tell about how national health reform can learn from what we've done in Massachusetts," said Jarrett Barrios, president of the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation, who also attended one of the meetings.
Kennedy is not alone in trying to get a head start on the healthcare debate. Senator Max Baucus, a Democrat from Montana and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, held a healthcare summit in mid-June, and a bipartisan proposal to make private insurance accessible to all Americans has been put forward by Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, and Robert Bennett, a Republican from Utah.
Intraparty disputes were one reason Clinton's 1993 proposal foundered. Back then, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, dismissed the financing of Clinton's plan as "fantasy" just before the president presented it to Congress.
Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, a healthcare consumer advocacy group, said Kennedy was trying to avoid division by having senior staff members meet with their counterparts on Baucus's committee.
"If the two committees are working cooperatively together and developing a common legislative proposal, it means that the process is less likely to get bogged down because of jurisdictional and substantive differences," he said.
Even though health costs have soared along with the number of uninsured over the past 15 years, the defeat of the Clinton health overhaul plan was so politically devastating to the administration and to efforts to enact universal health insurance law that nothing approaching such a large-scale effort has been tried since. One purpose of the roundtable discussions, participants said, is to educate Senate staff on broad issues that have not been seriously debated in years.
Kennedy's committee has held two meetings so far - one with healthcare coalitions, the other with physicians' groups. Eight more will be held by the end of the month. The meetings are attended by aides for committee members of both parties, said Craig Orfield, a spokesman for Senator Mike Enzi of Wyoming, the ranking Republican on the committee.
Whether the two parties and myriad interest groups can overcome their differences over the next year remains to be seen, but several of those participating in the discussions expressed optimism about that possibility.
"There's been talk about the healthcare crisis for years, but I think in the last year and a half, the system is failing so many people and becoming so costly, that I don't think there's anybody who doesn't understand there's got to be fundamental changes to the system," Orfield said.
NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND
Bill Clinton Blames Kennedy for No Child Left Behind Flaws
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February 01, 2008 4:39 PM
ABC News' Sarah Amos and Jennifer Parker Report: While stumping for his wife at an Arkansas high school Friday, former President Bill Clinton seemed to blame Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., along with President Bush for the failure of the No Child Left Behind Act to live up to its promises.
Watch the VIDEO HERE.
"The President made a deal with Senator Kennedy and neither one of them meant to mess it up," Bill Clinton told a crowd of about 400 teachers and students in Texarkana.
"The deal was supposed to be, we will give the schools more money and get rid of two programs that Bill Clinton actually started -- hiring more teachers in the early grades which actually does help performance and help schools with construction needs if they are overcrowded," he said.
"And we will not put anymore money in the after school programs, which does help, and we will raise school performance by telling people their money depends on how their kids do on tests and we are going to give five tests five years in a row, and we will cut the states a check based on how they are doing. And then the law kind of winks at the state of Arkansas and says, 'don't worry about it too much because you get to pick the test and the passing score.' Now think about that you get the worst of all worlds," Clinton said.
Clinton mentioned Kennedy's association with the No Child Left Behind Act - a federal education law unpopular with public school teachers -- in the same week that the liberal icon passed over his wife to endorse her Democratic rival -- Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.
The former president mentioned Kennedy yesterday while explaining his wife's pledge to radically overhaul the education law.
"I want you to think about this, and I have to say, this was a train wreck that was not intended. No Child Left Behind was supported by George Bush and Senator Ted Kennedy and everybody in between. Why? Because they didn't talk to enough teachers before they did that," Clinton said yesterday at Arizona State University, according to the Associated Press.
But today marks the first time the former president seemed to blame Kennedy for the bill.
In 2001, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., voted for the No Child Left Behind Act, but has since said it was mismanaged and should be replaced.
"I believe that every child should be taught by a qualified teacher and that schools should be accountable to the parents of the children they serve. That is why I supported the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001 and continue to believe in the principles behind the landmark law. When the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA) was enacted, I viewed it as a historic promise between the federal government and educators -- schools would be held to higher standards than ever before and the government would make a record investment in those schools to ensure that they would be able to meet the new expectations confronting them," reads a statement from Hillary Clinton on her senate office website.
No Child Left Behind
Bill Clinton says “No Child Left Behind” a train wreck
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Associated Press
Published: February 1, 2008
TEMPE, Ariz. (AP) - Former President Clinton said that if his wife is elected president she would radically change the “No Child Left Behind Act,” which he described as an education disaster initially supported not only by President Bush, but liberal icon Ted Kennedy.
Clinton’s association of Kennedy with the No Child Left Behind Act - a federal education law unpopular with public school teachers, a key Democratic party constituency - came just days after the Massachusetts senator passed over Hillary Rodham Clinton to endorse her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama.
“I want you to think about this, and I have to say, this was a train wreck that was not intended. No Child Left Behind was supported by George Bush and Senator Ted Kennedy and everybody in between. Why? Because they didn’t talk to enough teachers before they did that,” Clinton told more than 2,400 people in a speech Thursday night at Arizona State University.
Hillary Clinton, a New York senator, also initially supported the No Child Left Behind law but has since said it has not been properly financed or run, and should be replaced. She has proposed $10 billion for universal preschool, more money for special education, and incentives for teachers who work in places and on subjects where shortages exist.
Obama, an Illinois senator, has said he also would change No Child Left Behind “so that we’re not just teaching to a test and crowding out programs like art and music.” He has also said he would encourage but not require universal pre-kindergarten programs, expand teacher mentoring programs and reward teachers with higher pay not tied to standardized test scores in an $18 billion plan to be paid for in part by delaying elements of moon and Mars missions.
Bush modeled the federal No Child Left Behind Act on a Texas education law adopted while he was governor. It aims to prod low-performing schools to improve by tying government aid to performance standards.
“The idea was we will increase funding to the schools - which they did once but they didn’t continue it, so they made it an unfunded mandate,” Bill Clinton said, adding that the law also did away with programs from his administration that were helping to modernize old schools, build new schools to alleviate overcrowding and provide after school care.
Instead, the Bush law requires “our kids take five tests five years in a row,” but allows school districts to “pick the test and the passing score, so you wound up with the worst of all worlds ... You could wind up lowering the quality of education,” Clinton said.
