Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
The title of the book is “A Quest for Health-Reform – A Satirical History”.
And it is a narrative and analysis of the long struggle for health reform in the United States, from the beginning of the 20th century to the turn of the 21st century.
What makes it unusual is that it is told through political cartoons, primarily.
I've used cartoons in my lectures and in my presentations for years.
I’ve always found them very effective at conveying messages very succinctly;
taking complex political circumstances and reducing them to some basic dynamics that we need to understand and also see recurring patterns.
I’m a historian of medicine and public health with a special interest in health policy, both in the United States and globally.
One of the areas that I especially enjoy teaching in is the history of US health policy,
which I present in the context of United States policy and politics in the various sort of struggles over that.
By the turn of the 20th century, Health Reform becomes the focus.
So one of the first cartoons we have in that period, is a cartoon that appeared in a publication of something called “The Labor Legislation Review”.
The obvious message of this very clever cartoon is that if the American worker doesn’t acquire as good and as full an umbrella as the British worker,
he will soon be exposed to the elements and be beaten down and may become shorter and less robust than the British worker.
Fast forward to the post-WWII period - and it’s a cartoon that has Harry Truman standing at the bedside of a very injured Uncle Sam,
who is injured and battered by America’s experience in WWII.
And there is Harry Truman standing next to him and saying in a blithe and seemingly insensitive way, “So how about a little health insurance now?”.
Meaning this is more than poor Uncle Sam should have to take at that point.
One of my very favorite cartoons is by Matt Wuerker.
This is a cartoon of President Obama, standing at a chart, acting professorially, talking about bending down the cost curve in very academic ways, with a pointer, no less.
In the background is an ominous looking machine, and out of its loud speakers are coming these familiar words,
“Fear. Commies. Kill granny. Rage. Violence. Nazis.”
Mike Luckovich was another brilliant cartoonist, well represented in our book.
And one of Luckovich’s particular concerns is, what I would call, “The Paternity of Obama-care”.
Many people have said that really it could be traced back to Romney-care in Massachusetts. The fact is, it can be.
Why political cartoons are so important, in this story, is that we need to release the tension.
We need to move beyond the polarized extremities and recalcitrant positions to a place of reasoned debate and rational discussion.
The issue is that important and if cartoons can help us get there, then they are a wonderful medium to do that.
A production of the University of Rochester. Please visit us online and subscribe to our channel for more videos.