I agree 100% with singing Teddy's praises loud and long and commemorating his legacy monumentally:

His name, ideals and life's work flowing and showing as proudly and naturally as the mane on that big gorgeous head.

Here's the just-right (must-have) version of The Lion (Sleeps Tonight) that wound down the vigil: Mbube by Miriam Makeba. Mbube is both the style of song and name for the Lion. It's traditionally done without musical instruments, for the true lion song needs none. It can be as gentle as a mother's lullaby or as mighty as a warrior's roar, but always brave and strong. The resonance within the silences amplifies the power of both.

In death, Kenney is being eulogized as the "Lion of the Senate" --a master legislator and advocate for the common man. While the personal tragedies of the Kennedys evoke in the public a certain sympathy for Ted Kennedy, the fact remains that his name is not associated with a single serious social reform. He spent his final decade sponsoring bipartisan measures of a right-wing character, such as George W. Bush's "No Child Left Behind Act"--an attack on public education--and a punitive bill targeting undocumented immigrants that failed to win passage in Congress.

Kennedy supported Obama in the 2008 election, in part out of animus toward Bill Clinton, whom he privately despised. The dark irony of his life is underscored by the fact that his signature political cause, which he promoted for nearly 50 years--universal health care--has been turned by Obama into a cover for a ruthless drive to gut health care for millions of working Americans. A bill to slash health care costs for big business and the government was being debated in Congress as Kennedy lay dying.

Two weeks ago, Kip Sullivan posted a lengthy analysis of the HELP committee's Community Health Insurance Option.  It's weedy and wonky, but nonetheless helpful in getting an understanding of how what sounds great in PR releases, can become perhaps less attractive when the details are fleshed out.

To begin with, as of the date of Kip's post, the HELP Committee bill had no bill number, and wasn't available for the public to read.  I don't know if this has changed, but the only thing available was the draft bill on the committee's website.  It was in two pieces, the second of which contained the details on the Community Health Insurance Option.  I have not compared the July 2 Bill Text that appears on the Kaiser link Jeralyn provided with the markup provided in Kip's post, so your guess is as good as mine whether either of these two bills are the final HELP committee bill.

But' here's part of what Sullivan has to say:

Section 3106 requires the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS, the federal agency within which Medicare and Medicaid are housed) to create multiple health insurance companies that, together, will make "public" health insurance available for sale to the non-elderly in every state in the country.  The Secretary will not be using federal employees to make this happen.  The Secretary is required, rather, to contract with nonprofit insurance companies to create health insurance policies that will qualify as "community health insurance options."

Kip goes on to dissect the language of the draft bill, and says:

But as we read on, we encounter provision after provision that indicates the HELP Committee definitely envisions a balkanized "option." Some provisions reveal that intention by referring to "options" plural. Others reveal it by giving the states the authority to determine essential features of "options" sold within their boundaries, such as the required reserve levels and maximum benefits. A single national program can't have 50 different reserve requirements and 50 different benefit levels.

Anyone else feeling a little uncertain yet that what is described in the posted summary may not be all it's cracked up to be?

Section 3106 is a mess, but its meaning becomes clear after several readings. Section 3106 does not create the "Medicare-like" program promised by Jacob Hacker, HCAN, Howard Dean, and other "option" advocates. Instead it proposes a program that authorizes DHHS to create numerous health insurance companies tied to geographic areas, and to contract with members of the existing insurance industry to create and possibly run those companies.

Before people leap onto a bandwagon in the belief that, because Ted Kennedy's name is in some way attached to a "public option" that it is, in fact, as great as it is being advertised, I would urge them to read the markup, and read the analysis of it.