"For some of Ted Kennedy’s critics, his brand of liberalism represented an affront to American liberty.  In their minds, his passion for universal health care was nothing more than a passion for big government. 
 
But those of us who knew Teddy and worked with him here — people of both parties — know that what drove him was something more.  His friend Orrin Hatch — he knows that.  They worked together to provide children with health insurance.  His friend John McCain knows that.  They worked together on a Patient’s Bill of Rights.  His friend Chuck Grassley knows that.  They worked together to provide health care to children with disabilities. 
 
On issues like these, Ted Kennedy’s passion was born not of some rigid ideology, but of his own experience.  It was the experience of having two children stricken with cancer.  He never forgot the sheer terror and helplessness that any parent feels when a child is badly sick.  And he was able to imagine what it must be like for those without insurance, what it would be like to have to say to a wife or a child or an aging parent, there is something that could make you better, but I just can’t afford it. 
 
That large-heartedness — that concern and regard for the plight of others — is not a partisan feeling.  It’s not a Republican or a Democratic feeling.  It, too, is part of the American character — our ability to stand in other people’s shoes; a recognition that we are all in this together, and when fortune turns against one of us, others are there to lend a helping hand; a belief that in this country, hard work and responsibility should be rewarded by some measure of security and fair play; and an acknowledgment that sometimes government has to step in to help deliver on that promise."