Kennedy’s Absent Voice on Health Bill Resonates

By MARK LEIBOVICH
NYT

WASHINGTON — As a divided Senate tangles over health care legislation, there is bipartisan consensus on one point: Ted Kennedy could make a big difference, if only he were here.

“He would lend a gravitas to the issue that we’re kind of missing right now,” said Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa and a member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Mr. Harkin’s Republican counterparts similarly invoked Mr. Kennedy in criticizing a health care measure the committee approved Wednesday with only Democratic support. “It is a very one-sided, very liberal bill,” said Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah. “I know that Ted would not have done that had he been able to be here.”

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who is battling brain cancer, has not been on Capitol Hill since April. Colleagues routinely lament his absence, which has been especially painful to Mr. Kennedy, the committee chairman, who has spent much of his career trying to expand health coverage.

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