U.S. PIRG Consumer Blog: Senator Ted Kennedy, Consumer Champion

Senator Ted Kennedy will be deservedly remembered for all the important legislation he shepherded through the Congress to help the least among us, and to help all of us against powerful interests, as well as for the passionate way he went about this work. At PIRG, we were fortunate to work with him on numerous victorious campaigns, including the recent improvements to student loan laws. I will always remember the privilege of working with him on an important, but losing, campaign against the draconian bankruptcy bill. As I blogged last year when the Senator's illness was first disclosed, he'd taken over the fight after the tragic death of Senator Paul Wellstone. Here's more on the relationship of that fight to the current fight for health care reform:

In the final bankruptcy battle on the Senate floor in 2005, Senator Kennedy unsuccessfully offered two important amendments to provide protection to families whose bankruptcies were brought on by illness exacerbated by crushing medical debt. You can read some of his powerful arguments starting on this pdf Congressional Record page and clicking "next page." Excerpt:

We had testimony from Professor Elizabeth Warren of the Harvard Law School last week making clear that more than half of those filings for bankruptcy have been forced to do so at least in part due to medical problems and their aftermath. [...] Those who go to bankruptcy court because of cancer or diabetes and heart attacks have not been irresponsible. Those who file for bankruptcy to deal with medical debts incurred when a child was born early with severe complications or an elderly parent needing costly prescription drugs or placement in a nursing home are not irresponsible. [...] We see health care coverage lost for these families who have paid in for 20 or 30 years. WorldCom closed down, Polaroid closed down, Enron closed down, their health benefits are cut off, they get cancer, the bills run up, and what does this bill do? It puts them into indentured servitude to the credit card companies. We call that fairness? That may be the priority of some in this body, but it is not mine. Who do we in this body represent?[...] That is what we are about in the Senate? We have the problems of unemployment, the escalating costs of prescription drugs, 8 million of our fellow citizens unemployed, school tuition going through the roof, and we are talking about an additional $5 billion for the most profitable industry in America. Hello. Hello. That is what we are debating here. It is extraordinary. [...] I am tired, when one person tries to extend the same kind of health care we [in Congress] have to people out there, of people on the other side who say: Well, we are not going to support you. The problem is the health care problem, and we ought to deal with that. This is a bankruptcy issue. Come on. Come on. They oppose us when we try to pass health care legislation, and then they oppose us when we try to deal with the health care problems that are going to be impacted by the bankruptcy bill. It does not work that way.

It is time for Congress to reject the demands of Big Pharma, Big Medicine and the health insurance lobby and enact passage of what will certainly be called the Senator Edward M. Kennedy Health Care Reform Bill of 2009.