A quiet recess week in Washington turned somber this morning with the news that Senator Ted Kennedy passed away late last night after a year-long battle with brain cancer. I can’t claim to have known Senator Kennedy, but the one time I did meet him it was in the course of what he called the “cause of my life” — his fight to make health care a right for all Americans. That meeting was in 2006, when he stood up with Dana Christensen – whose junk health insurance left her with $450,000 in medical bills when her husband died of bone cancer – to oppose legislation that would have caused the spread of junk insurance that doesn’t protect patients when they get sick and need it most. As the political chatter turns to whether the Senator’s loss will galvanize or be the end of health reform, his absence is already felt.