Naming a Health Care Bill After Ted Kennedy Is Exactly What the Senator Would Have Wanted

Let’s all be clear about one thing: Ted Kennedy wanted health reform. Badly.

In the months leading up to last November’s election, Kennedy threw his support behind Barack Obama only in exchange for a promise that the Obama administration would make health care a central policy priority. And I’m sure no one needs reminding that Kennedy called the issue “the cause of my life.”

So when the usual bacon-fed hate-baiters on the right (Hannity and Limbaugh, thus far) start arguing that a health care bill named after Kennedy would be some sort of “sympathy ploy,” we can all be forgiven for emitting a collective, exasperated “WTF!?”

Here’s the full Limbaugh quote, via POLITICO:

"Placing [Kennedy’s] name on a health-care bill, in memoriam, or using his name as a sympathy ploy to advance a health care bill that would deny Americans the choices Sen. Kennedy had is an insult and is supreme hypocrisy. The senator's passing is going to give them the opportunity to use the sympathy play to get as much done in his name as possible."