I think this one is the best ever. It’s a riff on the static cartoon I did recently. What do you think?
SYNDICATED COLUMN: Half Healthcare, 100% Dead
Time for Obama to Get Serious
Half measures are boring.
That political reality derailed Bill Clinton’s 1993 healthcare reform plan. And it will likely unravel that of Barack Obama.
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office finds that Obama’s plan, sponsored by Senators Chris Dodd and Ted Kennedy, “would reduce the number of uninsured only by a net 16 million people. Even if the bill became law, the budget office said, 36 million people would remain uninsured in 2017,” reported The New York Times. Yet it would cost at least $1 trillion over ten years.
Americans like Obama’s basic idea: “Seventy-two percent of those questioned [in the latest Times/CBS News poll] supported a government-administered insurance plan–something like Medicare for those under 65–that would compete for customers with private insurers. Twenty percent said they were opposed.” The support is broad. But it isn’t deep.
“Pay higher taxes for a healthcare plan that probably won’t help you personally, even if you’re uninsured” isn’t much of a sales pitch. No one is going to call their Congressman, much less march in the streets, to demand action for a half-measure–or, in this case, a quarter-measure. Without public pressure to push back against drug and insurance company lobbyists, nothing will change.
Like every mainstream Democrat since Jimmy Carter, Obama is a militant moderate, elevating triangulation and compromise-for-its-own-sake to the status of Holy Writ. But radical problems–and the state of healthcare in America surely qualifies–require radical solutions.
More than that, simplicity sells. French- or U.K.-style socialized medicine–everyone covered, every doctor’s visit free, every pill free, every doctor a government employee–might indeed cost three times more than Obama’s incomprehensibly vague, vaguely incomprehensible proposal. But it’s easy to understand. Moreover, as James D. Miller notes in his book “Game Theory at Work,” people crave certainty:
“What would you rather have: 1) $100,000 or 2) a 50 percent chance of getting $200,000 and a 50 percent chance of getting nothing? Both choices give you on average $100,000. The majority…would prefer the first choice: the sure thing. Most people dislike risk, which is why so many of us buy insurance.”
When we can afford it.
When citizens evaluate a political proposal, the first thing they ask themselves is: what’s in it for me? Thus the appeal of a gimmick like George W. Bush’s $300 tax rebate checks. No one seriously believed they would stimulate the economy. But hey, three hundred bucks is three hundred bucks.
Right out of the gate, Obama’s “public option” plan tells the public that there’s probably only one thing in it for them: higher taxes. Most Americans do have insurance. They don’t like their deny-deny-deny insurance companies, but there’s nothing for them in the Obama-Dodd-Kennedy proposal. Some Democrats have even floated the idea of taxing health benefits!
At least 47 million Americans have no insurance. And that number is going up fast. But the CBO says only one of out of four of people without insurance would be helped by Obama’s “public option.” The rest would pay higher taxes–and still remain uninsured. Why should they get excited about The Return of Hillarycare?
As president-elect, Obama said he planned to “keep [his] finger on the pulse” of the American people. “One of the worst things I think that could happen to a president is losing touch with what people are going through day to day,” he said. But it is painfully clear that “the bubble that exists around the president” has already enveloped him.
There is no true middle ground on healthcare. The most civilized and efficient approach, tried and tested by the rest of the industrialized world, is fully socialized medicine. Put the insurance vampires out of business. Cutting out the health profiteers and encouraging preventative care will save hundreds of billions of dollars a year.
Failing a comprehensive solution, let the free market reign. True, 20,000 Americans will continue to die each year due to lack of insurance. But private healthcare corporations will continue to invest in innovative treatments and medications. The city of Hartford will keep adding shiny new skyscrapers to its skyline–and our taxes won’t go even higher over this issue.
Obamacare offers the worst of both worlds–it would be expensive and inadequate.
COPYRIGHT 2009 TED RALL
July 2 in Seattle: Cartoonapalooza!
Come and meet some of the nation’s best editorial cartoonists–plus me–on Thursday, July 2 in Seattle. Tickets are $25. Show starts at 7:30 at Town Hall.
Cartoonapalooza features “Pulitzer Prize-winner Mike Peters, syndicated editorial cartoonist and creator of the popular cartoon strip, Mother Goose and Grimm; Jack Ohman, the Portland Oregonian’s much-honored cartoonist; provocative cutting-edge cartoonist and columnist Ted Rall; Mark Fiore, the leading pioneer in the new field of animated editorial cartoons; Signe Wilkinson of the Philadelphia Daily News, a Pulitzer Prize-winner and one of the nation’s top female cartoonists; Matt Bors, creator of Idiot Box and other alternative editorial cartoons, and me, David Horsey, two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize.”
Many other top political cartoonists will be in the audience. All the cartoonists will be available for lingering and malingering after the show!
New Animation: Choking the Final Chicken
Michael Hutchence. David Carradine. When will the scourge end?
Warning: Not suitable for Americans to view with a full stomach.
Tucson Book Signing
In conjunction with next week’s Association of Alternative Newsweeklies’ convention I’ll be joining “Red Meat” cartoonist Max Cannon for a book signing in Tucson next Friday at 7 pm.
See you there, Arizonans!
My Letter to the New York Times
A few days ago, The New York Times ran a piece about how they weren’t paying artists for the artwork you sometimes see replacing the Google logo on their main search page. Today they published my letter to the editor.