The Republican Healthcare Chart an Anaylasis

[Engineer4Obama]

you know the one the Republicans have been throwing around all over the place?

This one:



A few thoughts. First of all lets take a look at how they make it scary:

16bit Color selection: The chart looks like it was written on a windows 3.1 machine. The first thing the republicans decided to do was make sure that the chart was actually physically painful to look at.

Include as much information as possible regardless of relevance: If you take a look at the chart many of the things on there seem to be irrelevant or redundant they list the Comparative Effectiveness Research Commission only to link it to the CER trust fund as well as something that is not described called CCER(because with acronyms that all include CER I'm sure they couldn't have been combined under one ill-defined box). For heavens sake there is a block on there that is just an acronym and has an X through it!

Scare the people with minorities!: ON the list of seemingly irrelevant groups included in this diagram Office of Civil Rights seems to jump out at me. Why would this be on Health Care? Oh maybe its to insure there isn't an inconsistent level of care for minorities? Well lets see what is it connected to... Federal Mandates for Website Design wait what? Couldn't you have left that out of this chart? Maybe used the space a bit more appropriately? Add to the fact that Linguistic training appears on this chart not once but twice and you get the idea that maybe the GOP is making a not so subtle hint on their opinion of the "uninsured".

Disorganization is your friend: Make all connections between organizations as long as possible! If you like up to the Health & Human Services Dept you'll notice that all this area seems to be over run with lines. There is no clue as to what the large blue line in the middle is as it seem multiple things connect to almost every organization on the page and I highly doubt that all of them are related to the federal mandate for website design. Defense Dept connects to only one thing, one of the orange items (which I guess are organizations? programs? Is there any rhyme or reason to the color scheme?)and the two panels are on opposite sides of the chart! Everything that the "Clinical Preventive Services Taskforce" connects to is close to the middle of the chart yet they decided that it should be far to the left. I'm not sure why the President & Congress are even on this chart. Was congress afraid we'd forget the constitutional relationship between the various departments of the executive branch and the Elected Officials?

Completely misrepresent the relationship between insurance companies, health care providers, and Consumers: The real purpose of this chart in the first place was a visual representation of the talking point "Obama wants to put the government between you and you're doctor!" So naturally the Consumers, (which Obama apparently wants to turn into smurfs) and the Health care providers are as far apart as possible. My favorite part of the whole chart is this: Apparently under the dems new plan any drugs or medical procedures will instead of going to you, the grumpy smurf consumer, will go straight to the Health Insurance Exchange (that's right the government is gonna steal your triple bypass for themselves!). After the Government has received you the taxpayer's shoulder surgery they may decide to provide that surgery to you, in a non-descript wide gray arrow, that is if it ever gets through all the red tape! Additionally you will notice that the one color the GOP has been obvious about what it means is red. Red has been used throughout this chart in order to represent money. Now look at the Health Insurance exchange were all insuring entities are represented. What is the primary role of an insurance company? To pay for something you yourself cannot afford. So one would assume there would be a red line between the Exchange and the Providers. But while all other financial transactions are represented there is nothing showing money moving from the Insurance Companies to the Providers. Nor is there a link between employers and insurance companies.

There is only one way to explain this... The Dem health care plan will force doctors to do forgo any payment allowing The government and the insurance companies to pocket all the money coming to them from the Smurfsumers. Forcing doctors to starve without any source of income soon the entire system will break down leaving our soldiers sick and malnourished. Canada will then take this opportunity and attack take over our country and institute a Single Payer System of health care. Don't you see its SOCIALISM!!!

Studying this chart for too long will cause you to go mad.

Edit: typos

[Engineer4Obama]

1. I'm willing to take some time and create a parody of this chart

I'm just looking for suggestions of what to chart out in the parody.

[iamjoy]

3. See My Post Below

I talk about our current system of employer-based health insurance

[backscatter712]

7. I suggest the GOP's extremely simple health care plan...

[iamjoy]

2. What About Our Current System

Most of us who have coverage have it through our employer. Employer based plans are governed by ERISA, responsibility for which is divided between the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Labor and the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation. They also have to follow certain HIPAA regulations, as governed by the Department of Health and Human Services. Oh, and Center for Medicare and Medicaid also has a hand in how your employer based plan is administered. Add various state agencies if there are any special regulations in your state.

Let's say your company uses a third party to help adminsiter the benefit enrollment. Add that to the mix.

So, we have no less than five different federal agencies. We have your employer (payroll, HR, etc). We may have a third party who handles enrollment, recordkeeping, etc. By the way, your employer's payroll function may also be outsourced to another company.

We haven't even gotten to your insurance company, much less the health care provider!

Of course, the simplest system is the one the Republicans don't want. It would be a single payer system in which the medical providers are federal employees. If you're sick, you go to a nurse or doctor. You don't have to worry about enrollment or how you pay for coverage or care because it's all automatic. When you need medical attention, the only form you have to fill out is consent for treatment.

[Engineer4Obama]

4. Someone already did that for me

[iamjoy]

5. I Realized Something

That the chart the Republicans made looks an awful lot like our current system. Of course, it doesn't have the collection agencies - you know, for those people on private plans who get dropped retroactively after filing a claim for a major illness. Let's not forget the credit card companies that even insured people must use for deductibles, copayments, coinsurance, etc.

I was never really a fan of single payer until I looked at the Republican's chart and thought of how well it could be applied to our current system. Then I thought about how simple a chart for single payer would look.

YOU ----> MEDICAL PROVIDER -----> GOVERNMENT AGENCY (HHS?)

[Engineer4Obama]

6. Well the whole point of my analysis

was that the republican chart was trying to be everything at once. At first it seems to be a chart of government organizations that relate to health care and their inter-department relationships. But then it goes on and tries to describe the way that the system will work for the consumer. Randomly throw the President and Congress in there and remind consumers that they are paying taxes to the IRS. Then move the organizations around so the lines are as long as possible and look as ridiculous as possible.

I mean I'm sure there would be advisory boards and tax lines to the IRS ect for single payer as well.

I mean I recognize the program they used to draw this and you have to try to get it to look that clustered up.