In one editorial cartoon, an injured man cowers in bed, terrified, while a robot called “Socialized Medicine” towers over him. Buttons on the robot’s chest allow the patient to make a choice: flu, measles, broken leg, operation.
It is a cartoon that could easily have run in any number of American newspapers in the last three years. But this one is from the 1920s.
Editorial cartoons have been used for decades to discuss the need for and opposition to health reform, and a new book by APHA Executive Director Georges Benjamin, MD, FACP, FACEP (E), provides a look at how the debate has — and has not — changed over the years.
Published by APHA Press, “The Quest for Health Reform: A Satirical History,” features cartoons from The Cartoonist Group database, a clearinghouse for editorial cartoons. The cartoons are accompanied by text putting them in context for readers.
“I see this as a book for average citizens who have an interest in health reform,” Benjamin told The Nation’s Health. “I’m hoping they will find that the combination of cartoon and narrative will give them an insight into this issue. It’s not a new battle, and the battle isn’t over yet.”
The cartoons show the evolution of beliefs in the need for health reform. Notably, the American Medical Association, after supporting health reform in the early 1900s, opposed it during the Red Scare after the Russian revolution — a time when the idea was closely linked with socialism. AMA has been a vocal advocate for more recent efforts, including the Affordable Care Act.
In his preface to the book, which was conceived during a sabbatical from APHA in 2011, Benjamin said he realized that political cartoons often captured issues better than the written word ever could. A book of political cartoons is a great way to recount the history of health reform and point out the many similar themes that emerged over the years, he said.
One cartoon, from 1991, depicts a huge pile of insurance-related paperwork crushing a patient while, in the bed next to him, a man representing the nation’s 33 million uninsured quakes in fear. The text on the following pages discusses the many reform proposals, ranging from a conservative proposal to mandate the purchase of insurance to liberal support for a single-payer system.
Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Clay Bennett of the Chattanooga Times Free Press, who has a number of cartoons featured in the book, wrote the book’s foreword about the need for health reform and his pride in having been a voice in the fight.
“I can’t point to many successful campaigns progressives have waged over my career as an editorial cartoonist. So, as grateful as I am for all the practical good these reforms will bring, I’ve got to say that I’m just as thankful for some tangible evidence that the good guys actually can win every once in a while.”
APHA will host a book signing with Benjamin and co-authors Theodore Brown, PhD, a medical historian at the University of Rochester; Susan Ladwig, MPH, from the University of Rochester Medical Center’s Center for Ethics, Humanities and Palliative Care; and Elyse Berkman, from Baruch College, at APHA’s 140th Annual Meeting in San Francisco, Sunday, Oct. 28 from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. in the Expo Hall.
To order the book, visit www.aphabookstore.org or email apha{at}pbd.com.
- Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association
