Health Care: Which Chart Scares You More?

the boehner chart looks scarier; the Cohn chart uses soothing pastels, and mostly ‘non-threatening’ thin dotted lines and small arrows. And the Cohn chart is designed to explain the system — colors actually mean something, and grouping is done to make the chart more understandable. Boehner’s use of color (and shapes) appears to be completely arbitrary.

As a journalist, you should be pointing out these differences, and explaining to the public how Boehner is using this graphic in an intellectually dishonest manner, rather than simply saying “here’s a graphic, and here’s another one — you decide!”.

Ask Bernie’s staff to prepare a single payer chart. Ask Boehjner whether he supports the much simpler, much cheaper single payer plan.

The republicans have yet to make either a single coherent argument against the public option, or offer an alternative to the current system. That they are treated by the press as participants in a policy debate is yet another instance of false balance. They opt out, but still get equal time.

Boehner’s chart is pretty and his has pictures in it. Cohn’s kinda of sucks with all the words and stuff in little boxes. And what’s with that lame ass “you” seal?

BTW, do they have wallet sizes for those of us who want to share with family and friends?

I guess I think our commenters are smarter than you think they are. But if you insist, I will issue this warning: Pay no attention to the pretty colors.

The Boehner chart has connection lines “jumping over” each other to evoke the image of an electrical diagram, which I’m sure most folks find instinctively confusing.

Also, Boehner forgot the dragons and sea serpents along the margins.

SwampGang: No feeding Thursday, waddaya say?

“The republicans have yet to make either a single coherent argument against the public option, or offer an alternative to the current system. That they are treated by the press as participants in a policy debate is yet another instance of false balance. They opt out, but still get equal time.”

True and yet their arguments are the ones that seem to be gaining traction.

A refrigerator magnet version might be nice, too.

An’ ye can be thankin’ yer favorite MSM “journalist” fer tha’ amazin’ feat!

YARR!

They both be too confusin’ t’ follow, bu’ th’ Boner’s be more likely t’ scare people – mission be accomplished.

Arrgh.

Not ye personal, KT, most o’ th’ time…ye be a bloody Woodward AN’ Bernstein compared t’ most.

Arrgh.

I’ll be givin’ it a go, kbang…be countin’ be in.

Arrgh!

I have been searching for a while for that original 1994 chart that Bob Dole used in his State of the Union response. Does anyone know whether that chart is online somewhere?

Could be worse. Maybe.

http://politicsoffthegrid.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/the-joker-nurse.jpg

The best illustration would be a bag of money representing what health care costs now (including the uninsured) and another bag of money showing what the Democratic plan costs.

Under the bags would be the estimated costs for the upper class, the middle class, and the poor. If there are cost savings in the new plan along with covering more people (including those in the middle class who can get royally screwed if their job does not aid in providing health care), then the new plan is better than what we have now.

I am disappointed that Boehner’s chart lacks the distinctive orange that the man himself favors. Other than that, if you follow the magic arrow, it actually looks relatively easy for doctors to get to patients.
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The Cohn chart, on the other hand, looks like the spec for some sort of nuclear reaction. When you consider the impact of Boehner-care (sorry, non-socialized medicine) on most individuals and families, this seems grimly appropriate.
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And yes, no feeding today. We need to curb troll obesity.

Cole’s is scarier…Why? Because Boehner’s is a fictitious representation of what may (or may not) happen when health care form is passed. Kind of like using stories about the boogeyman to keep your kids from getting out of bed in the middle of the night. Cole’s, on the other hand, represents the reality of the current mess of a system (insurability tied to empoyability, denial of coverage for expensive or “experimental” treatments, doctors having to get permission from insurance beauracrats to provide treatment, etc.) that we have right now. Kind of like scaring your kids about the dangers of crossing a busy street without looking both ways…

I like that Boehner’s chart refers to me as a consumer for health care, I think that sums up the Republican view of Health care right there. A product they sell to those who can afford it.

Looking at the Cohn chart makes me feel like I am a sea turtle about to be strangled in a tangled drag net.
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I am actually sorta impressed with the Boner. The republicans are slowly starting to figure out how to make flow charts. Remember that flowchart they included in that budget with no numbers?
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/03/real-republican-road-to-recovery.html

They are finally mastering Viso.

Good for Cohn, and good for KT for showing us the comparison. Is there any explanation for the blue-faced and obviously white consumers and the African-American nurse in the Boehner Bunkum? There is a flavor of subliminal racism here.

Amen.

But part of the problem is our revered president has yet to put personal skin in the game on the public option, and Rahm Emmanuel is doing the traditional “Chicago Pol bad compromise” thing that those of us who grew up in Illionois learned to expect so frequently.

I have written the President about this several times. If about 5 million others also do so, who knows? –it might have an impact.

KT – Wanting to avoid wasting money on Washington turf wars, don’t you think culture and linguistic competency training ought to be under the jurisdiction of the Office of Minority health, as it appears now Boehner doesn’t have it connected to funding stream — standard GOP incompetentancy.

I’m feeling increasingly pessimistic about the Health Care bill Congress will eventually produce. In fact, I doubt Congress can produce an effective bill when it needs to weigh industry interest vs. public interest (and no, they are not the same). When I read stories like this (link):

“The nation’s largest insurers, hospitals and medical groups have hired more than 350 former government staff members and retired members of Congress in hopes of influencing their old bosses and colleagues, according to an analysis of lobbying disclosures and other records.

Overall, health-care companies and their representatives spent more than $126 million on lobbying in the first quarter, leading all other industries, according to CRP and Senate data. PhRMA led the pack in spending and employs 49 former government staff members among its 136 lobbyists, according to The Post’s analysis. Dozens of other former insiders are employed as lobbyists by Pfizer, Eli Lilly, the AMA and the American Hospital Association, each of which spent at least $3.5 million on lobbying from January through March.

..there can be no doubt that the system is broken. (For 1st Q lobby spending by industry and firm, read here- link) Absent serious campaign finance reform, I fear nothing will change (Obama?). There will be no great American leaders while our political system rewards those who help themselves.

I swore off weeks ago. I’m getting more tasks accomplished, my blood pressure’s back in the normal range and a persistent rash has cleared up.

OrangeMan’s chart is about as useful as one of those electronics manuals written by someone who failed ESL – and that’s exactly what Boehner intended. It’s no surprise the Republicans have supplemented their verbal dishonesty with a visual component.

LOL! Win!

Aye!

Wallet size? What do you do with the magnifying glass you need to tote along?

Why is TIME’s Halperin using the completely unsourced and phony Associated Press number that the House bill cost $1.5 trillion instead of the CBO estimate of $1 trillion?
How disgraceful.

Ignoring the information and just looking at the chart it’s really stunning how much more placid Cohn’s chart looks. all those soothing pastels. And the boxes are in rows and almost look organized,despite the loopy connectors. So Boehner’s looks discordant and kinda scary.

Agree with Basilbrush about the not so subtle racism. There seems to be an attempt to give the health care consumers different facial features, but they’re all white. Is he trying to suggest that if the government’s running health care “we” (and of course “we” are white) will get inferior care because it will be offered by (shudder) blacks?

On the other hand, he could just as easily have made all the consumers black and made the health care provider white, and made it look like with the President’s plan “we” were going to be paying for a lot of health care to blacks. Hard to say. But it was not accidental – of that we can be sure.

I have to say, that if Boehner is supposed to be the poster boy for the benefits of our current health system, someone should ask him how he ended up so orange that he glows in the dark. Is this really the health care Americans deserve? An Orange Revolution, perhaps?

The Boehner chart lost me at “Federal Mandates for Website Design.” That drove home the point that what I was looking at was probably a scare tactic, and not really worth deciphering. What a shame to spend all that time creating the chart without making it useful for furthering the discussion.

Did George Hamilton pull that chart off a 5 1/4 in. floppy disk that he found collecting dust in the House archives, where it has been sitting since the health care reform fight in and box styles all over the place. It looks like it was produced by a 15-year-old experimenting with CorelDraw in his high school desktop publishing class circa 1994.

I am, however, impressed by his use of PC-graphics. An African-American female doctor….a Benetton-like group of “consumers”. Not bad, Coppertone.

All that said, St. Tropez Tan’s is much more fun and friendly and colorful. It looks like the health care version of Chutes & Ladders of Candyland. I may pick it up for my kids this Christmas. Don’t get stuck in the Health Insurance Exchange Trust Fund Swamp!

Th’ lack o’ usefulness an’ scare tactics be th’ entire POINT o’ th’ thing!

An’ it might o’ been clear t’ ye tha’ it were simple scare tactics, bu’ I be b’lievin’ thar be plenty out thar who WILL be scared, an’ flock t’ their respective health insurance premium collection corporations fer salvation fr’m th’ evil tax monster, exact as presented by th’ Boner.

I don’t be underestimatin’ th gullibility o’ th’ American Public.

Arrgh.

I’ve read some coherent arguments against it, it’s just that they’re nauseating. For example, the book “Catastrophe” has a whole chapter on health care that goes something like this: A public option would insure more people at a lower cost. This is bad, because the number of doctors and nurses is not keeping pace with the population growth. Since there aren’t enough doctors, the system will have to use rationing, and that system will be the government, by virtue of having the cheapest program. There are two conclusions: Government bureaucrats will be making all the health care decisions, and the people who currently have insurance will see the quality of care degrade as the system becomes over stressed.

No one really seems to care about the government part — a single payer system isn’t on the table, and the argument that the system will become single payer because that’s what wins out in the marketplace is very dangerous ground.

The real concern is the lack of doctors when we get all those new people insured, and that’s a serious problem. Of course, it’s a problem anyway — I have insurance, but I still have a hard time finding a primary care physician when I move to a new area. Even if I never found a doctor, though, there are still so many advantages to having insurance that an argument that boils down to “I don’t want you to have any if it makes things less convenient for me” is enough to make me throw up a little.

Aren’t these the same people who produced a chart that extrapolated the national debt by drawing a random 45-degree line to infinity, and another chart showing what the debt would look like in when converted to a stack of dollar bills?

It’s truly frightening that these people are tasked with governing the nation.

Glad TNR did this since in a vacuum the Boehner chart makes the future look hideous. In context with the other chart,, it creates an entirely different impression … and hopefully, conversation.

Like this chart?

I like how all the references to taxes in Boehner’s chart are in red. “Warning!! Socialism!! Communism!! END OF DAYS!!!”

How do we get away from the “taxes are the work of Satan” meme? Wait for Grover Norquist to shuffle off his mortal coil?

And why isn’t the idea of closing tax loopholes and reducing some tax breaks getting more traction? Seems that would create a broader tax base than simply taxing the top 1%.

You forgot the chart which describes the Republican plan to reform healthcare:

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/after-brightly-colored-chart-failed-to-win-waxman-markey-fight-gop-brings-it-to-the-battle-over-heal.php

You really should update this post to include it!

John Boehner thinks we are little children and has to come up with pretty and colorful charts to help us understand the Healthcare Plan. This is the problem with the GOP, they do not realize that in the real world we know exactly how poor our system is and how it only serves the industry giants bottom line. When I pay $1200 a month for sub par healthcare, I don’t need some Republican hack telling me that I have the best healthcare in the world. To add insult to injury he uses kindergarten visual effects to try to dazzle me. The party of NO offers nothing for the American People and that is why they are now the party of the past.

Zorro

Note how on Boehner’s chart consumers and health care providers are shown as far apart as it is possible to get them – as if there were a huge bureaucracy separating them. But to do that he had to draw long arrows to get them on opposite sides of the chart. The connections between them are really very direct.

Boehner must think Americans are really dumb.

Ye really should, KT – let’s see it up thar in front wi’ th’ other two!

One thing that really stand out for me is how little compassion the Republicans have. I watch Fox News and I am amazed how they have so rabidly taken on Obama against Heath care reform. They never show the other side. I have tuned out and found that The ED Show is truly fair and balanced. Fox is all about scare tactics and weird conspiracy theories. They have lost me completely, just like the republicans.

You notice how racists always tend to think everyone else in the world is acting in some racist fashion (cf. the republican attacks on Sotomayor)?
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Maybe stupid people tend to think everyone else is just like them.

I’d like to smack Boehner upside the head with a pastrami. He’s so f’in busy saying, “We can’t do this! We can’t do that!”, just to protect his financial backers in the industry, that he can’t even offer up a plan that _might_ work to help We the People. What a disgusting speck of useless organic material.

I think this would be useful than Boehner and his ilk:

http://www.adn.com/2835/story/864687.html

The WHO ranks the US Healthcare system just above Slovenia. France and Italy Rank 1 and 2. These are real facts

http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html

Visio.

Is it pronounced “bah-ner” or “bo-ner”? Makes a bit of difference when explaining “Boehner care.”

I’d agree, except he’s not trying to explain things to us: he’s trying to scare us. If he actually gave two sh!ts about us, he’d stop wasting time with these scare tactics and come up with a real plan.

Org Chart of the Hourse Republican Health “Plan”: That’s teh awesome!

I’d like to bring figure one to Mr. Boehner’s attention:

http://www.dourish.com/goodies/see-figure-1.html

[...] it were up to me, we would use the term “Boehner-Care” when referring to our current health-care [...]

You are perfectly correct, but this is journalism today. Ms. Tumulty’s response is simply snotty and condescending—also true of journalism today.

Don’t be layin’ all th’ blame on th’ Boner an’ ‘is party – we democrats be havin’ plenty o’ our own tha’ be more concerned wi’ their backers in th’ health “care” industry than wi’ th’ needs o’ th’ American People.

Max Baucus, anyone?

me own Maria Cantwell?

Th’ Blue Dogs?

YARR!

Um, because he is Mark Halperin?

I be gettin’ tired o’ rehashin’ th’ same ol’ sh*t.

If th’ President an’ th’ Democrats wanted to, they could pass a reform bill wi’ a strong public option tomorrow.

If they wanted to, they could pass a SINGLE-PAYER system tomorrow!

If th’ MSM wanted to, they could accurate frame th’ debate an’ provide important information, ‘stead o’ fixatin’ on tit fer tat horserace manure an’ allowin’ all sorts o’ lyin’ shenanigans to broadcast unchallenged!

Th’ facts be, th’ lily-livered castrati passin’ themselves off as Democrats an’ our “free press” be a bunch o’ scattershot cowards, fer th’ most part!

I be fully expectin’ t’ be sold out in favor o’ th’ health care industry when th’ final product be comin’ out.

‘r it could just be th’ rum fr’m las’ night not worn off as o’ yet…I be WANTIN’ t’ be havin’ hope…

yarr.

I be noticin’ KT be no’ postin’ th’ chart o’ th’ Republican plan opensourcepundits so kindly were providin…if we can’t even be gettin’ tha’ wee representation o’ wha’ really be goin’ on prominent displayed ‘longside th’ duelin’ charts, half o’ th’ story be bein’ buried.

Arrgh.

“I guess I think our commenters are smarter than you think they are.”

Well thanks, I guess. What about the other 299.9999 million other Americans? I hear that somewhere around a third of them think the Republican Party gets it “about right” and still think George Bush and Dick Cheney did a pretty good job running the country. Do you think they understand that the Republican graphic is always scarier because it’s a lie?

It’s a rhetorical question because no reality you could supply would ever shake them from their delusional thinking and fealty to the conservative tribe. Nevertheless, the important truth of the matter has to stop being left unsaid.

Did you notice the black female doctor was the only one connected to cultural and linguistic training — not sure if its for her or her patients.

You mean you don’t admire our fearlessly bipartisan leaders as they waddle into a well-padded corporate cell?

[...] Health Care: Which Chart Scares You More? House Minority Leader John Boehner, borrowing a tactic from the health care wars of 15 years ago, has put together an [...] [...]

The really scary chart is the one being excluded: the one that quantifies the number of americans who smoke, could finish a mile under eight minutes, and eat fast food more than once a week.

One thing lost in this discussion is that both chart include government options.

Cost, rationing and destruction of the economy are arguments. Just not the ones socialists want to hear.

Today on CNN Wolf Blitzer recalled a chart involving the health care program proposed by President Bill Clinton in 1993 stating that it was “1,000 pages, if you remember, the detail, all the fine print the last time” Blitzer said “everybody remembers that weird chart THEY had trying to explain it.” CNN then showed a video of former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R) pointing at the chart as Blitzer added: “There it is. Take a look at that chart. There’s Bob Dole.”

Blitzer was absolutely suggesting that the “weird chart” was Clinton’s.
Actually the chart came from Republican Senator Arlen Specter’s office. Omitted from the video was the next part where Dole said:

“My colleague Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania has prepared a chart of what the health care bureaucracy would look like under the President’s plan, and I’d like to show you this chart. It’s a great, big chart.” .

Pretty dishonest on Blitzer’s part I think.

[...] And now that we are hotly debating America’s health care crisis and need for reform, it didn’t take long for some scary InfoPorn to hit the streets. Time Magazine’s Swampland Blog has everything laid out nicely with their recent post, Health Care: Which Chart Scares You More? [...]

It’s not clear to me that the two are comparable at all. Much of the complexity of Cohn’s chart is due to consumer choices – note that the entire right column of Cohn’s chart is included in the “Health Care Providers” box of Boehner’s chart. Thus, Cohn has created a false sense of complexity by breaking down the box to its components, and by substituting complexity in consumer choice (generally a positive) with complexity in government regulation and administration (a negative).

Both charts are far too complicated to make sense of for us average folks out here who didn’t major in political science or statistics.

As far as nationalized health care goes, I think those who vote for it should pay for it. I’m not in favor of it because I can’t afford it.

[...] showing the horrendous complexity of the current system, and Ms. Tumulty put them side-by-side on her blog, inviting her readers to decide which chart scared them [...]

[...] Meanwhile, check out the battle of the duelling charts. [...]

Charts aside, pretty colors aside, public relations spin aside — it seems to me that you have to ask a few very basic and important questions:
1) Do we understand all the consquences and implications of the proposed changes?
2) Are we willing to take that risk because it is so bad right now?
3) Do we really understand the cost of the proposed changes?
4) Will the changes deliver better quality of care

I submit that we don’t know the answers to these questions. We do know that at its current rate health care cost growth is unsustainable. There has been little to nothing put on the table that will provide sustainable cost containment other than Congressional will to hold down reimbursements.

Finally, before we change the entire system we need to have meaningful effective inititiatives that prove we can contain costs to the general rate of inflation, otherwise we will go deeper and deeper into debt.

Follow the debate at http://www.ilovebenefits.wordpress.com

Single payer is neither more simple nor cheaper. The proof? Show me one branch of government that is more efficient and more cost effective than the private sector.

And remember; you get what you pay for.

As the saying goes, “if you think healthcare is expensive now, just wait until it’s free!”

[...] care reform, they’ve broke out yet another multi-colored graph. But this time, people like Karen Tumulty of Time, Brian Beutler at Talking Points Memo, and Ezra Klein of the Washington Post are catching on. Klein [...]

I think before we start spitting up in the air about GOP incompetancy, we should look at how the present administration has tripled the deficit in just a few short months, and wants to keep going.

The color of the charts is insignificant….what the health care plan will do to this economy is what we should be concerned about. Let’s stay focused on what the real issues are, and work together at making them better. Let’s be real…It can’t be denied, that socialism is alive and well in America, if you can’t see that, then you need to look up the word in the dictionary. While you’re at it….look at the constitution too and see what our Founding Father’s had to say about government control.

Karen: you must still be in Campaign for Obama mode judging by this posting.

Too bad you may have made a mistake with the charts.
http://michaelscomments.wordpress.com/2009/07/17/liberal-pinheads-exposed-karen-tumulty-and-jonathan-cohn/#more-9508

[...] http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/07/16/health-care-which-chart-scares-you-more/ [...]

[...] Health Care: Which Chart Scares You More? http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/07/16/health-care-which-chart-scares-you-more/ [...]