I usually don't create "straight" editorial cartoons (I'm always worried about offending somebody), but this "debate" is getting ridiculous and this cartoon is my gut response. I have little doubt that this cartoon won't ruffle some feathers, but so it goes.
To me, being "Pro-Life" means actually caring about the health & well being of a person throughout their life-- from start to finish. (I'm not going to debate where those start & finish lines are in a person's life, so please don't bother commenting about that.) This cartoon is not about abortion, it's about caring for the well being of your fellow citizen: a little kid, a retired soldier, a CEO who's well-off, a homeless person, a politician... all of the millions of citizens who live in this great country deserve good, affordable health care. However, because the economics of our insurance programs, many people can't afford it.
I am fortunate. I work for a company (part-time) that employs union workers. Because I'm a teamster and because of the nature of them darn (GASP!) "socialist" unions, I have awesome health benefits (medical, dental & vision and a 401(k) and plenty of vacation time!) provided to me at a very reasonable cost. (Less than $50 per month) I'm not rich. Not by a long shot. But like I said, I'm fortunate. Not everyone can work where I do, and not every company (or union) can provide the befits that I receive. I believe that if we were truly a country that cared about being "#1," then everyone would want their neighbor to do well as much as they would want that for themselves. If we focused a little less on competition and a little more on cooperation, I think this country could truly be #1.
Anyways... this weekend I plan to work on another "Health Care Debate" comic (a BLINK one this time) to post here after I've read through the proposal and (mentally) digested it. I'll strive a more nuanced voice in that one.
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(I'm an atheist). Christians were providing it FREE, through their own hospitals until people stopped supporting charity hospitals, thinking government was doing it all.
You anyone else who was spending their own money to do that?
So if they disagree with you on what TYPE of reform, then your benighted soul concludes they must be hypocrites? Really?
How is this not the same bigotry which opposes Obama because he's black?
"Droid to my left; droids to my right"
http://PoliticallyHomeless.net principle over partisanship - economic AND social freedom
@Ubermencsh-- the God I drew in this cartoon is the very same God that's found in THIS cartoon -> http://tinyurl.com/ybd58e9
@Politically Homeless-- Dang it! I KNEW that I'd upset someone.
Bigotry? That’s a pretty careless use of a weighted word.
@Cranky-- I'm sure there are SOME Republicans/Conservatives who actually WANT some kind of Health Care Reform, but they're definitely in the minority.
BTW, the genesis of this cartoon came to me after watching Monday's Colbert Report (http://tinyurl.com/y97jk6v) and that (along with a lot more) will be referenced in my upcoming nuanced HCR comic strip.
Also, thanks to all of you who've picked me as a "favorite!"
To oppose Obama's health care designs is to support health care. The proposals he supports are based on the utility of the person to whom health care would be provided, not the unalienable right to life that we now aspire to.
The ill, the infirmed, the mentally handicapped, the aged and the chronically ill young would be denied health care based on cost benefit guidelines.
It all begins the same, be it Nazis, Communists or Obamaites. Devalue a human life to an economic formula then you can begin to remove those people from the life cycle who don't fit into the metric that the all knowing wise men have arrived constructed.
Open competition for health care insurance across state lines would cause drastic reductions in the cost of health care insurance. Such sales are now prohibited. Ture competition will solve the health care problems not an every increasing government that intrudes into every facit of our lives.
With Obama care we would receive the efficiency of the U.S. Postal Service with the compassion of the IRS.
R
R
You are pounding your head against a stone. The cult followers here won't let facts dissuade them from their idol worship. The Republicans are only slightly less criminal than are the anti-constitution Democrats.
I was a forty years plus Democrat before I became a Libertarian. The Democrats are hell bent on destroying this nation. They are so unaware of the great things this nation has accomplished throughout the world they'll believe any lie told about the United States and accept damn near anything cock eyed plan that will harm it.
My question to them is simply. What departmet of the U.S. government has shown itself to be so efficient that its model could be used as a template for a national health care system?
@ Zev-- If you'll notice, Obama (and Oprah) are not mentioned in the cartoon or in my brief essay. As for the rest of your comment, I don't know if it your wording or your ideas that I don't understand. To be fair, there's a lot about Health Care/Insurance that I DON'T understand, so it might very well be my own fault that I don't comprehend your argument/stance.
However, to me, the bottom line is that there SHOULD be a way that the citizens of this entire country can have SOME means to afford good health care and I seriously DOUBT that competition is the ONLY answer to an equation that must equal compassion.
As for your commentary on dissing the USPS: Do you FEDEX (or UPS) *ALL* of your documents?? Personally, I'd rather spend less than 50 cents to send a mini comic book in the mail (BLINK mini comics are available at request to anyone at no charge!!) rather than spend the nearly $10 to use FEDEX or over $15 for UPS!! Seriously, wtf??
For crying out loud, people are being denied insurance now based on "cost benefit guidelines." Insurance companies already "devalue a human life to an economic formula" because doing so increases their profits.
As for your contention that government can't run anything: what about Medicare? I don't see tons of senior citizens giving up Medicare to buy insurance from our awesome free-market insurance companies. Medicare, for all its bloat, actually runs much more efficiently. I suppose you don't use it though, right? Just go with your high-deductible plan from Blue Cross?
And Obama has said he'd be okay with the purchasing of insurance across state lines as long as there is some regulation involved. We have to have regulation for one simple reason: people are selfish douchebags, as those guys at the big Wall Street banks showed with all their hijinks the last few years (look where that got us!) and health insurance companies are run by people.
But the GOP, like you, didn't want regulation to interfere with their precious free market and the companies' right to screw people over, so they would not negotiate on purchasing across state lines. Which is why it is now completely dead. Perhaps they could have gotten it into the bill and then gotten rid of the regulations down the road, but they don't think past the next election. Because they don't care about the people in this country, just about getting back into power so they can pick up where they left off running American's finances into the ground.
Really dude, why not just shake your fist at the rest of us and tell us to get off your lawn and leave your Ron Paul sign alone.
>....Really? You think Republicans just want a different kind of health reform? No, they want NO reform.
Unlike the blind and gullible, I've actually seen the GOP health plan. Includes a point-by-point comparison with the House Bill. CBO scores it highest on reducing costs for the vast majority of people (and voters) who are now insured.
>>>> If they were the least bit concerned about the uninsured – which they’re not, because few of them are voting GOP – they would have tackled the problem when they ran all branches of the government for several years. But they made zero effort. Zero.
ROFL. Which party are you talking about there?
>>>When Obama attempted to formulate reform, they made zero effort to participate in the discussion. Zero. They deliberately spread misinformation, like “death panels,” to try to doom it.
They also introduced 8 bills between last May and July.
Yes, they lied about death panels. Yes, you're own side tells lies just as big -- including everything you repeat here.
GOP death panelists believe anything their leaders tell them -- just like Democrat deniers. Why do you think most Americans (e.g.) now reject BOTH parties.
>>>>Bigotry? That’s a pretty careless use of a weighted word.
You showed exactly what I mean, at the very top of your response,when you assumed I supported the Republican versioon -- instead of simply being informed.
I'm no Republican, but if you assume they are all the same, isn't that like believing all blacks are shiftless, but good basketball players? Yep, bigotry is what it is.
Here's a link to the GOP plan.
http://www.gop.gov/solutions/healthcare
Politically homeless:
I followed your link . Admit that I read only one link which referenced an item in the great debate. Having said that, there is nothing in any of these items that REQUIRE reform from the insurance agencies...... we all know how well that will work, don't we?
It damn sure isn't the Conservatives standing in the way of purchasing health insurande across state lines. Along with tort reform it is one of the mainstays of Conservative proposals for modifying our current health care options.
Medicare? You have no idea what you're talking about when it comes to that program. I do indeed use it along with my union provided health plan that bails out on most medical bills when Medicare kicks in.
Medicare is accepted by fewer and fewer doctors because of the low rate of pay it delivers to medical providers. It is cumbersome, extremely costly and inefficiient to the taxpayers and verging on the edge of insolvency. It is also very adept at declining coverage for those who use it. Medicare is very restrictive and unresponsive.
If it weren't for the free market there wouldn't be a computer for you to use on the internet, nor would there be an internet except for the old government DARPA system.
The food you eat, the clothes you wear and the means by which you move around your city are all products of the free market.
In one way or another the asinine and misinformed comments you post are a direct result of the misinformation you chose to accept from a free market source. You must be wise enough to cull the wheat from the chaff. The free market is wholly controlled by the choices that people make in the market place. Would you rather the federal government made your personal choices for you? If so you must expect lesser goods at higher prices and in far lesser supply without recourse of complaint for the shoddy goods delivered.
The type of health system and market system you endorse have failed every time they have been tried. Such outcomes should be sufficient warning about their pitfalls.
Hey, everybody! This cartoon made it into the Top 5 in Daily OS popularity!!! Woo! After months of posting my BLINK comics, it takes me drawing an iconic image of CARTOON God, mixed with Health Care Reform debate commentary and a dis on (as I see it) hypocritical Pro-Life people to get some popularity. Lightning in a bottle.
Geez. That makes it sound like I'm a whore for attention...
So be it! Please keep those hits coming! Share a link with your friends & family and keep the discussion going! Also, send me a message with your mailing address and I'll send you FREE (non-health care related) BLINK mini-comic.
Anyone who roams the country sick with infectious diseases of any kind have the potential to infect you, directly or indirectly, if enough of them are roaming, serving your take out food, using public restrooms, riding in public transport, etc.
Anyone who has a chronic disease that is manageable with ongoing medical care will not present to the same resources you do in an unmanageable and expensive condition for intervention. You pay for that care with taxes or with higher insurance costs because America has not yet accepted the notion of our streets littered with sick and dying human bodies, which also is unhealthy for you, not just aesthetically displeasing.
Anyone who subscribes to "I've got mine; you get yours and don't bother me", needs to understand that, especially now, you may not have anything that you call "yours" at any given time. No job is guaranteed; no bank account is guaranteed; no health insurance premium, co pay, deductible, or carrier or network provider, is guaranteed. And no one's health is guaranteed. All of these "others" could be you or yours.
Lastly, ProLife is just that: affirmation of Life and all that is required to enable, sustain, promote, and respect Life. All life, as you so aptly stated.
As for the other points, we'll have to agree to disagree. It's like McConnell supporting a bipartisan commission on government spending, but then voting against it when Obama indicated approval. It's easy to make proposals for PR sake when you know they have no chance of passing.
I'm reading Game Change right now, and it is of note that when McCain gathered his advisors to plan his campaign and discussed the issues he would focus on, health care was not mentioned.
As for the Republicans and Libertarians, they can both take a long walk on a short pier for what I care.
Take a look at my post for yesterday. Then wonder why I am so damned angry!
Good work.
You don't live in a democracy. You live in a representative republic. Our republic has been successful and remained free because of the wide range of choices and capacity the free market gives us.
The free market creates competition which holds prices down and improves quality up unless the great thinkers believe that a communist nation should become the primary manufacturer for our republic. Doing so maintains low prices but quality suffers and high wage jobs disappear into the communist maul.
However, both major political parties endorse such an arrangement. In fact during the Clinton administration brown paper bags of money were delivered to the White House by an agent of the Chinese comminist government. The money was intended for the re-election of President Clinton. I apologize but I don't remember the name of the man who delivered the money. A Bign search would discover the name I believe.
What economy do you support if not a free market, capitalists one?
One area where the free market does not function in our nation is higher education. The cost of a college or university education has raced far ahead of inflation simply because of price fixing on the part of our higher eduction institution, in my opinion.
As more government (taxpayer) money has become available for student loans the schools have simply increased the cost of everything to soak up every cent made available by the government.
Education is far overfunded in our nation without a marked positive increase in results.
If the Republicans were actually fiscally conservative, they'd fight to save the investment already made in the education, health, job training, future earnings, productivity, etc., of the 45,000 dying each year from the lack of health care because they don't have health insurance.
They are the borrow and spend party, with no plan to pay for the tax breaks they gave our wealthiest citizens or for the pharmaceutical bill that provided no negotiations on costs so those companies have huge sums to spend on lobbyists to buy the votes of Republicans.
The news media should interview many people whose horror stories of trying to survive with no health insurance would put a face to the issue, instead of cold statistics. Some stories are at: http://www.prch.org/the-need-affordable-insurance-covers-reproductive-health-care
I did not say that conservatives were standing in the way of purchasing-across-state-lines proposals. I said that the GOP refused to negotiate to put in some regulations on those proposals. Had they been willing to accept some regulations, it would have made it into the bill. As for tort reform, the CBO will tell you that would address less than five percent of overall health care costs. Though even then Obama told GOP leaders in a meeting last year that he would address tort reform if they would concede their position on something else, and they could not name one thing on which they would compromise. Why? Because they're not interested!
And you have a union health care plan? Lucky you! What's the percentage of American workers today who have unionized jobs? If it's more than 15% I'll eat this computer. If the free market had its way unions would not even exist. Unions came into being to protect workers from getting screwed over by their employers, who would happily pay next to nothing in salary, fire anyone at any time at will with no warning, and not provide health insurance or pension plans if it would increase their profit margins. You would most likely have only the Medicare you claim is so insufficient if it wasn't for your union plan. You are a UNION worker of some kind and you rail against insurance reform to keep the rest of us from getting screwed? The hypocrisy of that position just floors me. Those union plans are supposed to be pretty damn comprehensive, which is why the "Cadillac tax" on them has become a big issue in negotiating the health reform bill. Health care reform is designed so that the people who do not have access to an employer- or union-provided health care plan can get relatively inexpensive insurance with fairly comprehensive coverage.
As to your comments about the food I eat and the means I move about the city, etc. etc., let's take that on. The food is subject to FDA regulations. If I buy meat or chicken, it's subject to FDA inspection. Otherwise the providers would cut corners and package up the cheapest crap they want and not worry about whether it might make people sick.
Modes of transportation? Um, roads and highways are built and maintained by my tax dollars, last I checked. Buses and subways? Publicly financed. It's not as if there are private buses competing with city bus lines here. Even with my car, I am required by the government to purchase insurance, as is everyone else on the road. Yes, the car itself was invented and built thanks to the free market, as were buses and trains. The means by which they are used, however, is regulated by government. And the transit workers who drive them (and the cops and the firemen and other public employees) belong to unions that fight for them to have living wages and health insurance.
In short, the free market of which you are so fond is chock full of government-mandated regulations. The health care reforms before Congress would simply be one more area of regulation that would keep the free market from completely screwing over many of its customers. Reform not a "government takeover" of health care, no matter what anyone tells you. Rather, it is a way for the government to fight this whole "Fuck you Jack, I've got mine" attitude that's become the overarching ethos of our civic life. If the government does not fight that, if you deregulate everything, you get the current economic crisis. You get people losing their health insurance when they actually get sick, going into bankruptcy to pay for expensive treatments. If you are okay with those things happening, bully for you. I'm not.
I don't know what you take free market to mean but it isn't laissez-faire capitalism. If that is what you believe it to mean you're mistaken. Free markets competes for the consumers dollars with the least amount of government regulation necessary to keep them honest.
If you expect me to accept your claim that Oprahobama is willing to accept across state line competition for health care coverage but the GOP is keeping it from happening you're mistaken. The Democrat party has a super majority in both houses of Congress. If it had presented an acceptable health care plan it would have passed it without any involvement from the GOP. The GOP can not keep the Democrat party from passing any legislation it wishes to.
Do you imagine that as a retired union member I should favor the destruction of the world's best health care system simply to satisfy an egomaniac like Obama? I decline to do so. Under Obama's wishes I would lose the little union insurance still available to me.
There is nothing simple about the health care destruction being proposed by Obama, Pelosi and Reid. However, the health care package they enjoy will not be impacted by whatever they may pass. Their golden government health care plan remains in force uneffected by what is deemed worthy for all other citizens of this nation.
A company may bankrupt one but only a government can enslave an entire nation. I don't trust either but I only fear the latter. The smaller the government the better. The larger the government the more our freedoms are restricted.
@zev. Would you explain the difference between democracy and representative republic and how it would matter to the masses? Also, would you agree that many of our current problems are in one way or another related to unbridled capitalism? How is that qualitatively different from unbridled free market? Do you expect people to stop when they've had enough too? If so, you may need to understand read more history and observe more of our follies as humans.
Might I suggest that it is you who needs to read more history if you don't know the difference between democracy, majority rule or as some of our founders called it, mobocracy and a representative republic-equal representaton through the rule of law.
I don't believe that in my lifetime unbridled capitalism has been practiced in this country. I do believe that criminal activity in some areas of business and the political sphere have caused us great problems.
Free markets for me are best understood as being markets without restrictive tariffs, nothing more.
It is not for you or me or the government to tell someone when they have enought of, I assume you meant wealth. A person in this nation is free to make as much money as they are capable of making without a person or orgaization limiting them as long as they do so legally.
I find those who object to another's wealth to be the most envious of sorts. At my age I'm not likely to obtain wealth but I hope my son's do so that they can enjoy the rewards of their long hours of toil.
The extremely arduous task of making a business successful in a competitive business environment is worthy of great compensation. I find no justification for a CEO to receive a bonus when a business has lost money. For such action I think shareholders should remove board members who support this. But, if you think those capable of successfully running a business are easily found I disagree.
CorneliusButterfield.com
The right has used fear and misinformation to stay in power: "Socialism" and terrorism are the new communism. As they have frightened the working class into supporting them with these brands, as well as by manufacturing racial and class divisions, their true constituents, banks and big money, have been looting our economy.
The immediate result: so many millions of working-class and middle-class "conservatives" have been duped into fighting furiously for their own captors. Call it a super Stockholm Syndrome.
The long-term result? Our money progressively becomes more and more concentrated in the hands of increasingly few and powerful. Hey Joe the Plumber, the American Dream ain't for you.
The prognosis: this won't stop 'til we have third-world style gated communities for the few that can afford homes, and there will be a (figurative, I hope) march on the Bastille.
I'm being ironic, of course, but lots of well-off Americans do think the poorly-off deserve to suffer. They won't admit it when you put it to them that crudely, but in their hearts of hearts, they think they deserve more than minimum wage workers.
Don't tell me about that wonderful charity in the emergency ward of the hospital, either, unless you've tried it. You get an expensive bottle of pills and a dose of humiliation on the side.
GOP insertion of abortion language into the health insurance debate is a very precise example of the tactics I described.
It is absurd that any American (except perhaps insurance execs) would be fighting against this bill, and therefore in defense of the insurance companies. Taking the absurdity to exponential proportion is that working-poor Americans have been duped into scrapping with ferocity to defend the insurance industry.
The insurance industry would eat Joe the Plumber if it improved their spreadsheet.
There are no free market forces at work in the health insurance industry. Your employer-provided health insurance would not exist without subsidies paid for by the taxpayer and price hikes from passing on other costs to the consumer. So those who are uninsured pay for your insurance while getting none themselves.
Without those subsidies propping up the health insurance industry ("industry"? Wait, what do they manufacture? Don't "industries" create something of value?), it would have collapsed on its own a generation ago. Their business model (raise rates on everyone, force out anyone who is sick, watch while your customer base shrinks down to nothing) is so unsustainable that in 2 years it would collapse no matter what the government does - except, of course, for mandates. And with price hikes either way in the foreseeable future, people with not be able to afford to buy.
The net result from permitting insurance to be sold across state lines would be a slight decrease in price and a complete gutting of plan quality, since state regulators could no longer require plans to cover any conditions. It would be a redux of what happened when state consumer finance regulators were no longer able to regulate credit cards to their residents. Now the states with the least regulations (SD, DE) are home to all our cards. The feds won't regulate abuses or even enforce their own laws. and cards normally charge 30% where before it was tied to the prime lending rate.
Or maybe we should compare it to when state regulators were no longer permitted to regulate mortgage terms. Your free market, unregulated, brought down the economy.
Yes, it's about controlling women. But much more than that it is about the god of the christian right being not a lover of innocent babies, but a vengeful god who wants to punish wicked women for tempting weak-willed men into having sex. That's why male responsibility never comes up in this context, yet you hear repeatedly how women "should have kept their legs shut".
They have no concern whether the babies are even born alive. Health care and nutritional support for pregnant women? No way! Seriously, they want to ban abortion for women carrying dead fetuses. They think it is a wonderful and noble thing for women to die carrying a doomed pregnancy. It brings redemption from the sin of being a woman.
Look at them, trying to cut off unemployment compensation (they want to eliminate the safety net entirely). They want children to be die when their parents lose their jobs, because only lazy people get laid off in a recession, and those who lose their jobs deserve to die. Andre Bauer compared poor people to stray animals and said if you provide them with adequate nutrition, they will "breed".
Forced starvation as a form of birth control for anyone who is not rich? And this is a public figure who actually got support when he said this? This goes beyond "class warfare" in the direction of "genocide".
You are incorrect. Any insurance coverage I receive through the collective bargaining process is paid for through foregone wage increases achieved during contract bargaining. Stockholders are the ones who pay for this insurance not taxpayers.
There are many industries that don't produce a tangible product; trucking, airlines, railroads, tourism, grocery stores and others.
I think your take on health care competition across state lines is invalid. State mandates would be a thing of the past and that is a very good thing. A consumer would be able to pay for that which he wants, not subsidize mandated insurance such as sex change operations or mammograms that garner political support. Please don't misunderstand. I think mammograms are a terrific tool but a single man should not be required to subsidize them anymore than a single woman should subsidize PSA tests and prostate exams.
Removal of state mandates will greatly reduce the cost of health care premiums by opening the entire nation to competition. However, consolidation of the industry must not be allowed to take place.
The conversation on this one cartoon, specifically your contributions, inspired me to register at this site. This is my first post here. Please take this as a compliment.
I saw you mention in one of your posts that you believe that we have the best health care system in the world. I have heard many other people say that in the past, but I have yet to hear anyone define it or really explain why they believe our system is better than any others. When I say "our health care system" I am referring to how it stands now, not how it will be after any of the proposed health care plans are passed.
I believe, from what I have read in your posts, that you can explain that position and back it up, probably without referring to anyone in politics. Could you do that for me?
Thanks!
-Edly
If you ever need any help in your efforts please look me up. Evan S. Levine MD
Below link to my latest blog on what hospitals, patients, and cattle have in common. Raw-Hide!
http://open.salon.com/blog/dr_evan_levine/2010/03/04/how_hospitals_make_money_raw_hide
I don't know that I am up to the task. However, I will try. Our ability to develop medical technology rapidly and introduce it into the medical field at an afforadable price is one trememdous advantage.
I believe our medical schools do an outstanding job of producing fine doctors, GPs through the most demanding of specialists fields. The nation's focus on advanced training of EMTs and Paramedics has a great deal to with the survival of accident victims and those struck with sudden onset medical events.
One statistic that is frequently cited as proof of our lacking in health care is our infant mortality statistics when in fact that is a mark of success. Frequently babies that would have been lost to spontaneous abortion are held to full term through medical intervention though they often times die in infancy. A flaw in the statistic is that all infant deaths are counted, death by accident as well a malicious causes.
The death rate from all organic causes trends down each year including AIDS. I think AIDS is a terrific success story. Sadly we haven't yet found a vaccine for the disease but the life span of AIDS victims have been greatly extended.
I sure there is much more others could add to the subject such as the wealthy of the world coming to the U.S. for medical treatment when they could pick any nation they desired. They come here simply because the great chance for medical success lies in the United States.
Recently the Prime Minister ( not sure of the title) of the Canadian province of Newfoundland flew to Florida for heart surgery. I think that says a great deal about our health care system and that of Canada.
I think we could do better if insurance companies got on board with greater emphasis on prevention to negate the need for later treatment.
Whoever thinks we have the best health-care system in the world lives under a rock. Ever had a conversation with Australian citizens about their health-care programs? Ever try calling one of those very strong, independent, and wisely caring, blokes a 'socialist'?
Thanks for the reply! Well thought, well written, as I expected! THAT'S what I wanted to see in the debate!
You've given me homework!
-Edly