Kennedy’s Passion for Healthcare Reform

Kennedy’s Passion for Healthcare Reform

Kennedy’s Passion for Healthcare Reform

In this moving April 2008 speech, Sen. Ted Kennedy explains why providing healthcare coverage for all Americans is the ’cause of his life.’

Copy Link
Facebook
X (Twitter)
Bluesky
Pocket
Email

Senator Ted
Kennedy
, the “Lion of the Senate,” died late on Tuesday
leaving a legacy of passionately fighting for the
new healthcare bill
.
As a cancer
patient
he was exposed to the challenges of the US
healthcare system, as a senator — to the best treatment this country
has to offer. Saddened and enraged by the fact that so many people
cannot afford comprehensive universal health insurance, Kennedy said at
the Montgomery County Democratic Committee Annual Spring Reception in
2008: “If this 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, good enough
for everyone in Pennsylvania and everyone in this country.”

Olga Razumovskaya

Check out more great Nation videos on our YouTube channel.

Disobey authoritarians, support The Nation

Over the past year you’ve read Nation writers like Elie Mystal, Kaveh Akbar, John Nichols, Joan Walsh, Bryce Covert, Dave Zirin, Jeet Heer, Michael T. Klare, Katha Pollitt, Amy Littlefield, Gregg Gonsalves, and Sasha Abramsky take on the Trump family’s corruption, set the record straight about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s catastrophic Make America Healthy Again movement, survey the fallout and human cost of the DOGE wrecking ball, anticipate the Supreme Court’s dangerous antidemocratic rulings, and amplify successful tactics of resistance on the streets and in Congress.

We publish these stories because when members of our communities are being abducted, household debt is climbing, and AI data centers are causing water and electricity shortages, we have a duty as journalists to do all we can to inform the public.

In 2026, our aim is to do more than ever before—but we need your support to make that happen. 

Through December 31, a generous donor will match all donations up to $75,000. That means that your contribution will be doubled, dollar for dollar. If we hit the full match, we’ll be starting 2026 with $150,000 to invest in the stories that impact real people’s lives—the kinds of stories that billionaire-owned, corporate-backed outlets aren’t covering. 

With your support, our team will publish major stories that the president and his allies won’t want you to read. We’ll cover the emerging military-tech industrial complex and matters of war, peace, and surveillance, as well as the affordability crisis, hunger, housing, healthcare, the environment, attacks on reproductive rights, and much more. At the same time, we’ll imagine alternatives to Trumpian rule and uplift efforts to create a better world, here and now. 

While your gift has twice the impact, I’m asking you to support The Nation with a donation today. You’ll empower the journalists, editors, and fact-checkers best equipped to hold this authoritarian administration to account. 

I hope you won’t miss this moment—donate to The Nation today.

Onward,

Katrina vanden Heuvel 

Editor and publisher, The Nation

Ad Policy
x