Tim Rutten has written well and wisely of Ted Kennedy in this morning’s LA Times. Here’s a bit of what he wrote:
“…..A new world, surely, and one he helped usher in. But also one that seems to be unfolding without three qualities that distinguished Kennedy’s long service.
The first is empathy. It’s shocking just how tenuous belief in the possibility of empathy as a public emotion has become. Kennedy’s brother, Bobby, was fond of quoting the ancient Greeks. One of them, Thucydides, once was asked, “When will there be justice in Athens?” He replied, “There will be justice in Athens when those who are not injured are as outraged as those who are.”
If Ted Kennedy’s 46 years in the Senate have stood for anything, it is for the enduring power of that antique insight. He is a rich, wonderfully connected Boston Irishman, and yet his life’s labors have been on behalf of blacks and women and Latinos, for people who sweated for a minimum wage and couldn’t pay their sick child’s doctor’s bill and asked for nothing more than a public school good enough to give their child a fair foothold on the ladder’s next rung. Their slights and injuries were his own.Today, increasing numbers of Americans and their politicians are lost to narcissism and its communal expression — identity politics. We believe that no one can feel our pain but us, and we care for none outside our tribe. Kennedy’s career has been a half-century reproach to that crabbed notion of the American condition. He believed unshakably in solidarity and the common good, and if that now seems quaint, the fault — and the loss — is ours and not his.
[SNIP]
Finally, one of the reasons Kennedy’s Senate comrades will feel his departure so acutely is that he always stood for a civil partisanship. There was no more committed liberal Democrat in that chamber.
A struggle with Kennedy was a bare-knuckle fight to the finish, but always according to traditional politics’ version of the Marquess of Queensberry Rules. It was never personal, and differences never precluded friendship, which is why the senior Massachusetts senator could work with George Bush or John McCain or Orrin Hatch, and will leave office with a record as one of the most effective lawmakers of all time. Nothing deforms our contemporary politics in quite the way the loss of Kennedy’s old-fashioned civility does…..
I met Ted Kennedy only once. Years ago.
I wasn’t sure I liked him.
But his presence was enormous.
As Rutten said, Ted K is “a rich (I’d add, extremely rich), wonderfully connected Irishman,”… yet who’s worked for the poor, downtrodden, and so on. Sure, the old tradition of “noblesse oblige,” that those who are “wonderfully” rich and well-connected should share their good fortune with those who are at the lowest rungs, their polar opposites in education and wealthy. Something we grow up with back East, in that more class-conscious world. Because that’s what this is: the flip side of a very acute class awareness, with a strong undertone of condescension built into it.
Judging mere mortals who have to work for a living, including politicians who aren’t independently wealthy, by this standard of tremendous privilege as “lost to narcissism and its communal expression — community politics,” is unfair on both counts. First, it’s not “narcissism” to have to deal with the necessities of making a living, and to have concern for others who do.
The Teddy Kennedy’s have great sympathy for the poorest of the poor, and the most uneducated, and paint them in vivid colors, as those “who sweated for a minimum wage, and can’t pay their sick child’s doctor bills,” but they can’t extend that empathy to the small business owner/ self-employed person who makes up the rank and file of the Republican party or the more conservative wing of the Democrats. These people may be making six figures, but have to pay salaries and rents and utilities and workers’ comp and other forms of employee and personal insurance, come rain or shine, accounts receivable overdue or not — I’ve been there, and it’s very, very stressful, not the “easy street” of “the rich” that these very rich limo libs paint them/ us as.
And as for “identity politics,” no one plays it more than these ultra-rich, “wonderfully well-connected” old-school liberals, who feel its precisely their own noblesse oblige which is required to pull “those people” up, since they can’t do it themselves.
I send my sympathies to Ted Kennedy and his family — a brain tumor is a terrible thing — I knew someone who passed away soon after being diagnosed, despite surgery and treatment. But this brand of old-school limo liberalism is thankfully fading, and as far as I’m concerned, won’t be missed.
BTW, There’s an LA Times blog about his age complicating the prognosis, with some readers commenting that if he were an Average Joe in England or Canada, or some futuristic single- payer American scheme, he’d be denied the expensive, aggressive care he’s getting now. No doubt. Frankly, even under many of our current HMO’s, probably.
I feel for Ted Kennedy, but having a fatal illness does not make him a saint or a hero. He should consider it a bonus for every day that he outlived Mary Jo Kopechne.
Some would read Plato. And, some would do more than read.
Good points all. He’s a complicated man whom, I believe has done much good. (I’m a liberal, so I would thing as such.)
But, when I met him, I got much the feeling that WBC outlines.
Woody, I understand your point. I thought about putting something about Mary Jo Kopechne. I’d like to think that TK did his best to atone. But she’s still dead.
What does that mean? Can’t liberals give straight talk?
My question in #6 referred to Listener’s comment.
Celeste, yeah, Kennedy did his best to atone. He lied about it, paid off the Kopechne family, and continued to carry on as if he is above the law, which apparently he is. Well, I don’t want to focus on that too much. She’ll stay dead and he’s receiving prayers and support.
I’m watching FOX News right now. They sure have the best looking female hosts.
Woody, when I said “atone,” I meant years later.
There’s no excuse for what he did. None. It goes to the deepest level of character. And, quite honestly, Ted Kennedy should have gone to prison. He didn’t, because of who he is.
All that said, I think he’s lived a worthwhile life in the last 25 years. (Even if you don’t like his politics, he at least works his butt off in the Senate and is one of the most informed of Senators.) People are more than the worst thing they ever did.
But, in 1969, he was a self-centered coward, and a girl died as a result.
You might want to check this account. It’s pretty thorough:
http://www.ytedk.com/intro.htm
“BTW, There’s an LA Times blog about his age complicating the prognosis, with some readers commenting that if he were an Average Joe in England or Canada, or some futuristic single- payer American scheme, he’d be denied the expensive, aggressive care he’s getting now. No doubt. Frankly, even under many of our current HMO’s, probably.”
Oh, well if some anonymous commenters on the LA Times blog say so…
Let me add that I have no patience for the notion that rich policians, as so many of them are, who advocate policies on behalf of the poor are somehow phony or condescending and those who advocate for the weel-heeled are salt-of-the-earth or just responsible businessmen. It’s just ridiculous. WBC, if you want to make a point about Ted Kennedy particularly, well, I don’t know enough about the man’s personality to fight you on this, but swinging wildly at “the Ted Kennedy’s of the world” means either your targeting a very narrow group (lion senators) or you’re just blowing smoke.
Mavis, you keep popping up to make snarky comments about whatever I say but have never said anything of substance on any subjecat to give you any cred, nor do you have any idea what YOU’re ever talking about, e.g. misconstruing what I said as “advocating for the well-heeled…” I frankly don’t give a damn about what you do or don’t have “patience” for, you’re just the most predictably shallow knee-jerk jerk out there.
And as for the insurance exclusion issue, Snotty Mavis, my point was that even the general voter is aware of the drastic denials of medical care based on age and other factors that are common in single-payer systems — that they’re more savvy than those trying to push this system down their throats assume. And it’s another case of hypocrisy, with the Teddy’s often advocating something they’d never tolerate themselves. You’re welcome to buy whatever B S you want, but save your Stupid Shallow Snark Attacks for someone who gives a shit.
I can’t be “the most predictably shallow knee-jerk jerk out there” unless you’re willing to take that title from Reg or is it RandyPaul this week? As for being snarky, well, I plead guilty. I post comments on blogs. Snarky is my birthright.
Your medical point is just totally phony. Average Joe’s in America get denied advanced medical care all the time because they don’t have enough money and their insurance doesn’t cover it. Ted Kennedy can get that coverage not because our system is so great but because he is rich and our system works for rich people. As to the notion that a wealthy, influential politician from Canada or France can’t get top-notch healthcare, well, that’s a load of crap too. You can construct a national healthcare system where willingness to spend additional private money for very high-level care isn’t an option, but that isn’t something that any Democrat is advocating.
“predictably shallow knee-jerk jerk…”
I may have to wrestle you for that crown too, Mavis.
Mavis, when did I ever say that “a wealthy, influential politician from Canada or France can’t get top-notch healthcare?” Sure they can — by paying out of pocket, outside the system, which is what all the wealthy do, virtually all time, precisely because their single-payer systems have many exclusions, especially by age. They’ve not “average” anything. When did I ever say that spending money in addition “isn’t an option?” It just isn’t for the Average Joe, who’s limited to what the healthcare provider decides, being unable to afford care that isn’t covered. All you’re doing is substantiating that Teddy has spent his life in that world of privilege where he’s divorced from the realities: his noblesse oblige enables him (and imitators like Rutten, whose terminology I quoted) to vividly depict min. wage guy/gal toiling by the sweat of their hands at the mercy of Evil Corporations, but they’re utterly clueless about the realities the middle and upper- middle face, and so their legislation and sympathies are all skewed. No, I don’t expect you to have any clue what I’m talking about either, nor do I care. Snarky is your “birthright,” huh? Okay, that’s real productive, and the one insightful comment you’ve made.
Celeste, so you want the knee-jerk jerk lib crown, huh? Well, I’d never call you that, but gotta agree with Woody, who nails your positions and perspectives as pretty much predictable — but go ahead, surprise us! You know he does it affectionately, acknowledging that your motivation is a strong compassion which doesn’t always jibe with logic or useful solutions to the problem.
But at least you’re laying yourself out there, putting thought into articulating each situation, trying to effect change. What I have “no patience for” are snarky, shallow criticisms from those with nothing to say. It’s SUCH a WASTE of energy responding to these people. Okay, we’re on watch for something here that really shocks expectations.
Well, the next post is probably a tad knee-jerky, and likely not terribly surprising. But it involves actual reporting rather than commentary, and tells an interesting (if sad) story.
It’ll be up after midnight.
Here’s what Ted Kennedy has in the way of health coverage – and so BTW does John McCain who rails against “Government Health care” after living under one form or another since birth.
(Just what did Johnny boy think those Naval Hospitals were?)
Ted, like John, and like the other two million plus Federal Employees is covered by the Federal Employee health system. I know about this since my father worked for the Post Office and we got our health care thru the plan:
1. Feds pay 70%. Recipient pays the other 30%
2. Every participant has a choice of plans
3. Plans are “Community rated” – everyone in a given plan pays the same
4. no “preexisting condition” allowed
5. Plans are comprehensive.
That is what John Edwards proposed as his plan for univeral health care with an option to go into medicare.
Thanks for the data points, Richard. Always helpful to have the specifics.
BTW, is WBC, Maggie by a different screen name?
At $3500 per capita in France and $6100 per capita in the US, measuring outcomes and extent of coverage, the “critique” of France’s single payer system offered by the the singularly most obnoxious and analytically challenged – not to mention absurdly narcissistic – commenter ever to grace these threads is sheer stupidity. Nothing more and nothing less. Dishonest, ill-informed and as not-so-blissfully ignorant as she is foul-mouthed.
“I can’t be “the most predictably shallow knee-jerk jerk out there†unless you’re willing to take that title from Reg or is it RandyPaul this week?”
Thanks a lot Mavis. What about the idiot who’s yammering about the horrors of France’s medical cystem. Knee jerk and shallow enough for you ?
Show me a comparative study of France’s health insurance system vs. the US version that supports a conclusioin that the US is superior – either in outcomes, delivery of services or cost per capita. One actual comparative study that’s comprehensive, non-ideological and not some anecdotal patch job.
Reg, re:I can’t be “the most predictably shallow knee-jerk jerk out there†unless you’re willing to take that title from Reg or is it RandyPaul this week?
I read that differently. I think Mavis forgot to close the snark tag when the comment was written in response to WBC. As in, Mavis recognizes that WBC has conferred that distinction most frequently on you and Randy. Ergo, the most predictably shallow knee-jerk jerk out there becomes the ad hom award of the week for whomever has irked WBC most recently. I’m guessing Mavis is not offended to share the distinction, given the individual conferring the award.
Just my take on it.
Truly informative and edifying, hard to tell who’s the winner of the kneejerk jerk award…poor Celeste has sure attracted a bunch of creepy guys to this blog, maybe in need of a mother figure…the numerical figures at reg 19, typically irrelevant to outcomes, which aren’t quantified nor were any bases of comparisons established. But enjoy your Circle Jerk time…
I’m simply asking for any comparative study of the US and French health care systems that uses data beyond anecdotal and is a reasonably comprehensive survey of costs and outcomes by which the French system is judged less effective than the US.
I’d really like to see one produced by folks yammering about what a disaster it would be to simply emulate the French system. Not a lot to ask.
Truly informative and edifying, hard to tell who’s the winner of the kneejerk jerk award…poor Celeste has sure attracted a bunch of creepy guys to this blog
Given the amount of projection in that statement, I think WBC is really Woody.
WBC is much more eloquent than am I. Is Randy Paul really Mark A. York and reg really Randy Paul?
what Listner said.
reg: Show me a comparative study of France’s health insurance system vs. the US version that supports a conclusioin that the US is superior….
The U.S. system is not run by the government. That makes it better. I don’t want to be more like France.
Still waiting for someone to come up with an empirical study of French vs. US health care that shows the French system is, in fact, some more costly government boondoggle and/or produces outcomes that are inferior. Something that isn’t anecdotal or based on ideological assertions. I’d love to see something. I’ve actually looked for this. The only comparative studies I’ve seen to date show the French doing much better in terms of costs and, as a general rule, at-least-as-well to signficantly better in any empirically verifiable outcomes. If people want to make unhinged, ideological and/or wingnut assertions – or produce movie reviews as some sort of evidence of how screwed up French medical care is – fine. But don’t expect to be taken seriously.
Woody – “I don’t want to be more like France.”
Although I’m not an expert on French culture, I would be willing to bet my house that the feeling is mutual.
Maybe Woody wold like to be more like the Itakians whise new Government under Berlesconi includes a neofashist party led by Mussolini’s grandaughter and Umberto Bossi’s Lega Nord whi makes Tom Tancredo’s views on immigration sound like LULA’s.
The data is skimpy because the French don’t do the kinds of cost analyses that we do in our private healthcare system, precisely because they don’t have to — and that’s part of the problem with all single- payer systems, including Canada’s. They just spend taxpayer money, and when it runs out suddenly due to lack of planning, hospitals might suddenly shut down — that’s been the case in Canada for years. I don’t know if France has been closing them down as they have in Canada, since they’ve had a stronger public resistance to reducing spending, regardless of what it does to their overall budget — something Sarkozy has been trying to change. And we’ve seen the resulting turmoil. Another way they try to manage costs is by arbitary age rationing, as I said in the first place — that’s especially pronounced in Britain, leaving the wealthier elderly to seek private care. (Yes, we do have some rationing in our private health care system, too, even for those fully insured outside HMO’s, e.g., when it comes to deciding who will get an organ for transplant: when there’s a choice between a younger person and an 80-year old. But far less.) This doesn’t mean that our more cost-efficient system works in the patient’s best interests all the time, of course: insurers take too big a cut for themselves, and stiffing patients on care and doctors on fees while their emphasis is on profits and shares can be downright criminal. But they DO know exactly how much it costs for each procedure, unlike in single-payer systems where they’ve never even had to worry about it. If we could combine the capacity for efficiency of our private providers with the greater emphasis on quality of care than on their profits (although to a large extent, these two are linked, as when top hospitals lure private patients willing to pay out of pocket for pricey procedures), we’d have the best of all worlds.
That’s all she’s gonna write on this: any further demands for stats, proofs, links, etc., or idiotic denouncements against “ad hominems” etc., will be duly ignored. Anyone involved with healthcare Quality Assessment/ Management and Risk Management will confirm these broad points: Go interview one of them, do your own research.
The cost per capita of the French health care system is known. So is cost per capita of the U.S. There is also considerable data on outcomes. “Our more cost-effective system” is a laugable assertion in the light of what actual per capita spending is in both countries. What you’ve offered in response to a request for some reference to a comprehensive analysis of both systems that leads to the conclusion that the French are wasting money on health care and producing poor outcomes while the U.S. system is efficient and provides better care overall is nothing but speculative bullshit. To tell me to do my own research, when there are numerous comparative studies out there that totally contradict your mumbo jumbo – and you can’t point to a single one that supports it – is pathetic. If “anyone involved with health care quality assessement, blah blah, can confirm that the French engage in some wasteful government boondoggle while the U.S. is spending health care dollars efficiently and producing better outcomes, name one. Cite as study by one of these folks. It’s obvious you’re full of your usual crap.
Incidentally, I’m not interested in what’s happening in Britain because it’s a totally different approach – literally socialized mediciine, and the spending is extremely low. Given the low spendiing, they seem to do remarkably well – but it’s not an approach I’d recommend.
Cost per capita isn’t cost per procedure, idiot, and outcomes include complications and quality. Babble and blather on, though, as usual.
reg, you know that France uses a different scoring system, that favors them, than the U.S.
Your challenge is very selective. Give most anything run by the government enough time and it will prove inefficient and more costly. You can’t limit a study of goverment run programs to just one, like health care. You have to look at all of their programs, because, sooner or later, all of them will reach that lowest point. The same people who run the French military also run their health care.
Of course I’m aware of the difference- you stupid ass – but you can’t produce any data that proves a goddam thing you claim about how we’re “cost-effective” and France isn’t. Cost per capita is central to the issue and the US is far higher than any other country – and we don’t even have universal coverage. You, madam, are the idiot because you’re talking out of your ass. I asked for date that shows the French are running a mismanaged, expensive system that doesn’t produce health outcomes as good as ours. You’ve engaged in double-talk and attempting to narrow the subject because there’s nothing to back your assertions up. I’ve asked for you to name someone or some study that contradicts findings such as the WHO comparative data. I’m coming to the conclusion it simply doesn’t exist.
And Woody’s babbling about differences in infant mortality statistics that don’t even begin to address the overall data. You are both making arguments that are either anecdotal or carping at the margins. If anyone has produced a comprehensive analysis that backs up a general argument that the U.S. system is on a cost-benefit basis, or simply on outcomes overall, I’d like to see it. The stuff from the Cato Institute doesn’t fit the bill. It tries to take issue with existing data – nitpicking really, like the infant mortality “controversy” without actually providing a counter-analysis or counter study that shows our overall outcomes are actually even equal, much less better. And of course it’s starting from a point of pure ideology.
You’ve got nuthin.
Woody, you don’t even begin to make any sense. Just a bunch of assertion – ideological fundamentalism of the worst sort.
I’ve looked at the empirical stuff that’s available on how much the French spend on health care as well as their health outcomes. That’s the only reason I make the claims I make about France being both more cost effective and consistently delivering quality care to more people.
Fine, send Ted Kennedy to France and let’s see their miracle health care system save him. In fact, rlc may want to have his pacemaker replaced with the French version.
The biggest difference between you and me is that I have witnessed government ruin institutions, like schools, and expect nothing different in the long run with health care. You think government makes things better.
Ask Celeste how King-Drew is doing.
Why can’t we be more like Europe?
European Court agrees to hear chimp’s plea for human rights
reg, why on earth I’d spend one minute producing data that anyone in the industry knows, is beyond me. Do the research as I said, interview people who might want to spend the time, those who don’t know what a waste of time it would be to talk to you — there’s an entire industry based on this basic premise.
So there’s no coherent data supporting the fiction that France’s health care system doesn’t consistently perform better than ours, either in costs or outcomes – nothing disproving the WHO analysis, etc.
Why I’d spend one minute confronting someone who has the arrogance to pull bullshit assertions out of their ass and present exactly nothing to back them up is the real question.
Woody, King-Drew has exactly nothing to do with the way health insurance is paid in France. It’s telling when someone asks for coherent data to back up some assertions and all that one gets is two people changing the subject, either to examples from another continent or to micro-issues.
reg, what’s at consideration isn’t how France’s system is run but how America would run its system, even trying to model it like that of France. King-Drew might be closer than you want to admit.
In France, those people would have insurance that would allow them to avoid places like King-Drew for lack of alternatives.
Let’s hire the French to run King-Drew and see if they could do any better. Our culture, demographics, and needs are different. You would think that a country that is so great at health care could raise a strong military before it raises the white flag.