"The Cause Of My Life"

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Jul 20 2009, 10:03 am by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy

In 1964, I was flying with several companions to the Massachusetts Democratic Convention when our small plane crashed and burned short of the runway. My friend and colleague in the Senate, Birch Bayh, risked his life to pull me from the wreckage. Our pilot, Edwin Zimny, and my administrative assistant, Ed Moss, didn't survive. With crushed vertebrae, broken ribs, and a collapsed lung, I spent months in New England Baptist Hospital in Boston. To prevent paralysis, I was strapped into a special bed that immobilizes a patient between two canvas slings. Nurses would regularly turn me over so my lungs didn't fill with fluid. I knew the care was expensive, but I didn't have to worry about that. I needed the care and I got it.

Comments (1)

ikoiko July 21, 2009 6:40 PM

Sen. Kennedy seems to have picked and chosen elements of his life to make us vote for the DOA that is the Health Care bill: under the bills floating in Congress, 1) his son would not have gotten treatment, because it would be considered "experimental", his daughter would not have had the operation in time because of the long waiting list, and Sen. Kennedy's cutting edge treatment would probably not exist because the medical (pharmaceutical and medical instrumentation cos) wouldn't be able to afford to do R&D at the same rate as they do in our present system. In addition, as a 77 yr old with health problems, his "managed care" would be "managed", a euphemism for limited (at his age even denied treatment). Given the essay he wrote, he should be a loud voice FOR the status quo. Let's face it, he got the treatment because he is Sen. Kennedy. The fairy tales that he and other democrats tell us that they want to give us the system that they enjoy as politicians is just that, a fairy tale: 1) the country couldn't afford the same system for 300 million people, 2) what they want passed is the antithesis of the Rolls Royce system they enjoy. 3) With only one health insurance (look on p.16 of the Health care Act), the system will only get bloated and stupid: the gov plunders Social Security and F*&^% up Medicaid on a daily basis.

PS Ask Ms. Belinda Stronach, a friend of Bill Clinton, why she had to go to California for breast cancer treatment: Canadian doctors didn't know how to do this procedure, without which she might have died...however, like Sen. Kennedy, she says that "she believes in the Canadian healthcare system", without even choking on that hypocrisy: she's one of the wealthiest women in Canada, so she can go anywhere she wants for any kind of treatment, unlike the "little people".

As to The Atlantic: did you fire your fact checkers? I mean this piece is one gigantic lie, don't you have a rebutal, or something?!?!?...Oh, sorry, it's a Kennedy....never mind ...