Health Care in Other Nations

I found this cartoon at an interesting blog called Ed Stein Ink. Ed is a Denver-based editorial cartoonist who has some great commentary with his drawings.

Today we'll be hearing from some folks from other nations. As Senator Keiser mentioned at our first class, the US is ranked well below many developed nations on various measures of health care. Those rankings obviously concern many people, but our class today will focus on specific experiences people have had to give a picture of what different policies are really like.

I'll provide links to various places where you can learn more about other nations later this week.

Health Care Reform - a Partisan Referendum on Presidential Power?

Denver-based editorial cartoonist Ed Stein has some interesting things to say about why people are opposing reform that would be in their own self interest:

I shouldn’t be any more, but I’m still surprised when people argue vehemently against their own self-interest. The health care debate has taken this disconnect to new levels. The states that seem to have the strongest polling against health care reform are those where people would be helped most by the reforms. The arguments I hear tend to be more political than practical, involving deep suspicion of government in general and Obama in particular, fear of some sort of socialist takeover of the economy, and the truly loony equation of health care reform with Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

I've seen a several political humour bits that echo his thought that opposition to health care policy reform is less about policy and more about politics.

Certainly, there are many protesters who have gotten quite personal in attacking the President rather than the bill itself. It's impossible to look into men's hearts and minds and separate out political power motives and party allegiance from true concerns about legislation. If we could create an alternate universe where John McCain had won and went on to propose similar legislation, it would be fascinating to see if the same people would be opposing reform.

What do you think? While you're pondering the heavy question, take a peek at these funny bits from Saturday Night Live and satirical website The Onion.