Ted Kennedy still pushing for Health Care Bill from his Sick bed

Ted Kennedy's passion to pass a bill for health care for everyone is keeping him alive right now. He's working from his home in Cape Cod and directing his Aides by phone. But his influence is sorely missed on the Hill.

From the LA Tiimes:

As Congress wrestles with legislation to give Americans access to quality care, which the Democrat worked toward for 46 years, the senator is sidelined with brain cancer, but not out of the game.

Reporting from Washington -- Ted Kennedy wakes up mornings in his house on Cape Cod to a packet of news clippings put together by his wife. If there's a hearing going on in Washington, he watches on his computer.

Five hundred miles away, Congress is wrestling with historic legislation to give every American access to quality healthcare. It is the moment the Massachusetts Democrat has worked toward for 46 years. But instead of marshaling the crowning achievement of his political career, he is sidelined, battling brain cancer.

"He has lived for this day when America would finally extend this right to every citizen. There's no doubt if he could, he would be here in the thick of this," Kennedy's son Patrick, a Democratic congressman from Rhode Island, said in a recent interview, sitting on a bench on the Capitol grounds with tears in his eyes.

But history's third-longest-serving senator isn't out of the game yet. Exerting what influence he can from his sickbed, he advises his aides in Washington over the phone. He has made himself the poster child of what he calls "my life's cause," and is using his illness in a final press for universal healthcare.

Kennedy, 77, seems determined not to miss this. He has outlasted medical expectations since doctors diagnosed a malignant tumor last spring, and is not above expending every last bit of his political capital to deliver the bill he will be most remembered for. Democratic leaders plan to bring him back to the Senate floor later this year in a wheelchair, or a bed if necessary, to cast his vote for healthcare reform.

"I have enjoyed the best medical care money (and a good insurance policy) can buy. . . . Every American should be able to get the same treatment that U.S. senators are entitled to," Kennedy wrote in an unusually personal essay published in this week's Newsweek, adding near the end of the article: "We're almost there."

snip

"One of the things Teddy has going for him is the remarkable caliber of staff. Arguably they may be one of the best, if not the best, staff on the Hill. The staff's professionalism and reputation and credibility also go a long way to helping fill the void," said Tom Daschle, former Senate majority leader and an informal White House advisor on healthcare issues.

But Kennedy's aides, who have fiercely defended their boss' bill, have not been in a position to broker compromises and have caused tension at times, trying to carry on in Kennedy's stead while lacking his stature.

Few senators possess the types of friendships that have brought Republicans to the table or the gravitas that holds the party rank and file in line.

"He's the only Democrat who really has the sway with the unions, the trial lawyers, gays and lesbians, environmentalists, feminists," said Sen. Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, a conservative Republican who has teamed with Kennedy on healthcare legislation for three decades. "We've linked arms on a lot of things for the good of the country. And I give him a lot of credit because it hasn't always been easy to link arms with me."

snip

Now an overhaul seems more possible than it has in years, and Kennedy's absence is keenly felt on both sides.

Life is strange. He has fought all of his political life for a good health care bill and just when it could very well happen, he is having health problems himself. And what he has fought for is the opportunity for everyone to have the good care he is getting. And he believes it is a right for all Americans, not just the privileged.