Thank You, Patrick Kennedy

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/28/AR2009042800059.html


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Personal Low, Career Peak
After Drug-Fueled Crash, Patrick Kennedy Turned Focus to Mental Health-Care Reform
By Vincent Bzdek
Washington Post Staff Writer

Political aides counseled Rep. Patrick Kennedy not to mention the incident when he was campaigning for reelection in 2006. "Don't bring it up," they insisted, as Kennedy recounts their reaction. "Everybody already knows about it." Talking about it only reminded Rhode Island voters of other Kennedy family misdeeds and misfortunes, they said.

The incident was the pre-dawn drive the congressman took straight into a security barrier outside of the Capitol on May 4, 2006. At about 2:45 a.m., the bleary-eyed scion of America's royal family staggered out of his green 1997 Ford Mustang convertible and informed police he was late for a vote.

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Fighting for Parity

After holding a nationwide series of field hearings on mental health coverage, Ramstad and Kennedy fashioned a new bill and presented it to the House.

And then they called in the secret weapon: Dad.

In the Senate, Ted Kennedy took up his son's cause, teaming with Domenici and Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) to quietly forge a broad bipartisan coalition after gathering input from mental-health advocates, health-insurance industry representatives and private businesses. With Ted Kennedy pulling the levers, the parity bill cleared the Senate with no dissent in September 2007.

"There aren't any coincidences when it comes to the Senate with my dad around," Patrick Kennedy said. The House's more expansive bill passed six months later.

House and Senate negotiators were hammering out compromises between the two versions when the legislation stalled over differences on unrelated budget procedures. Kennedy began to worry that the bill wouldn't get finished in time for his father to see it happen. The 77-year-old veteran lawmaker is battling a cancerous brain tumor that required surgery last summer.

In Hyannis Port, Mass., recovering from his chemotherapy and radiation treatments, Ted got on the phone. According to Patrick, his father talked nonstop to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and others, wheedling and cajoling his way toward passage, asking them to find a way to bring it up for a vote on the floor during a crowded schedule.

As Congress rushed to adjourn last fall, the bill was attached to the first emergency bailout of the financial industry steaming its way toward passage in late September -- and passed both the House and Senate. The only senator who wasn't there to vote was Patrick's father, who has made only a handful of visits to the Hill since his tumor was diagnosed.

Federal officials say the law, which President Bush signed Oct. 3, will improve coverage for 113 million people, including 82 million in employer-sponsored plans. Beginning in 2010, insurance companies will be required to charge the same co-pays, deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses for addiction and mental health treatments as those for all other illnesses. The legislation is expected to raise health-care premiums 0.2 percent to 0.4 percent on average and cost taxpayers about $3.4 billion over 10 years.

Ted Kennedy counts the bill among his greatest achievements as a senator. "I am enormously proud of Patrick's unwavering commitment to fairness and justice for all Americans struggling with mental illness," he said in an e-mail. "He is a true champion for the cause and a voice for the voiceless."

Patrick sent a note to his father the night after the bill became law. He wanted his thanks to be written down, something his father could forever hold and keep.

"Because in a sense," he explained, "in his fighting for it, he was fighting for something that was not only important to me, personally, as a son, but he was fighting against the stigma and shame that I've always felt at being 'lesser than' because I've had this illness. And that meant the world to me."

Vincent Bzdek is the author of "The Kennedy Legacy: Jack, Bobby and Ted and a Family Dream Fulfilled" (Palgrave Macmillan 2009), which is published today.