Political Irony

4 Comments

1. Thought Dancer wrote:

   This comic is a bit old, but it hit Digg today and a few other blogs I read. The one point that it misses is that most of the “health care reform” currently being proposed actually has next to nothing with reforming health care itself.

   It’s a reformation of the payment system, and one that could too easily give more money and more power to the very “insurance” companies that profit heavily from our ills and from refusing treatment.

   Even the public option would be available to so few people that it’s likely to put very little pressure on the insurance agencies. What it will do is chip at their long term dominance, much like the very first anti-smoking legislation started the long slow slide against those powerhouses. (Remember the smoking industry’s lobby?)

   Still and all, Zyglis’s work is good (I’ve been looking it over) and is worthy spending some time reviewing. Preferably over a much needed cup of coffee. 😉

   Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 10:40 am | Permalink
2. starluna wrote:

   I don’t think that the object of this cartoon is health care reform per se. It appears to focus only on the argument that it is too expensive.

   But I do agree that the current proposals do not address the systemic problems in health care. I think this cartoonist gets at that in this cartoon:
   http://www.buffalonews.com/opinion/editorialcartoons/gallery/13461-a714572-t3.html

   I hope that you are right that things will be structured in a way that eventually reduces the power of insurance companies. But unless the government is ready to get in the business of setting prices, I’m skeptical that it will happen. It’s why we need the public option. Or, give everyone access to one of the federal cafeteria plans.

   Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 2:36 pm | Permalink
3. Thought Dancer wrote:

   @ Starluna. I actually didn’t see it that way. Interesting.

   What I saw was the idea that the republicans supported wasting $3T on unnecessary war whereas Obama is advocating spending $1T on health care reform. One of these things kills people for no reason, and the other would heal people. So I didn’t see it as suggesting that the health care reform is too expensive, but that the republicans are being unethical/hypocritical for advocating that health care reform is too expensive when they advocated for a far more expensive use of funds (and one that benefited few to none).

   Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 3:36 pm | Permalink
4. starluna wrote:

   Thought Dancer – yes. That is what I meant. Sorry if I was not clear.

   Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 4:22 pm | Permalink