Thursday, July 16, 2009

battle of the charts

yesterday the republicans unveiled a colorful chart (pdf) to highlight the complexity of the democratic health reform plan:

which prompted TPM to create a chart based on the house republican plan:

meanwhile, jonathan cohn points out that the current health insurance system is just as complicated, if not more so, than the one the republicans are mocking:

my take is essentially the same as steve benen's. the point of the chart is what, that health reform is complicated? um, yes. but didn't we know that already? if you want a simple chart, go for single payer. but i don't think conservatives really want a simple chart. they want to make health reform seem scary and confusing. it's not a substantive argument, but that crowd doesn't do substantive arguments much anymore.