Thursday, February 10, 2011

Obamacare: The Comic Book

Some of you might remember this Barackaganda comic book, the one where Spiderman and the newly-inaugurated Teleprompter Jesus teamed up to fight evil.  Or success.  Or profit.  Or high employment.  Or something like that. 


As quoted in Reason magazine, someone is about to take it to the next level.  You see, ObamaCare® is greatness.  Pure undiluted greatness.  That doesn't explain why so many unions and corporations are demanding and getting waivers from it, but still....  It's greatness.

The great unwashed masses just can't understand it.

That's why we're getting....ObamaCare® - The Comic Book !!!!
Maybe we'll like it better when we don't have to wade through the 2700 pages in the Senate bill and the 6000 pages of requirements that the program has added to the Federal register. 

Heck, I wish I had thought of it.  Instead of 10,000 pages of regulations, lets boil it down to "illustrated, bite-sized panels". 
But enough of me, and my inability to contain my excitement.  Here's Reason:

The MIT economics whiz who crafted President Obama’s national health-care overhaul now plans to explain the complex and controversial plan to the masses — in one long comic book.


Jonathan Gruber, a nationally recognized health economist who devised the economic underpinnings of Obamacare (Gruber hates the term), said his three comic-loving kids encouraged him to use the hip format of the graphic novel — basically an expensive comic published in book form — to tell the story of the complicated plan to 300 million Americans.


Unlike most comic books, Gruber’s won’t have a superhero like Batman or Captain America or a villain like the Joker, he said.
“I’m going to use the facts to tell the story,” Gruber, 45, told the Pulse yesterday. “I’m the narrator guiding the reader through the law. It’ll have lots of pictures and text.”
Hill and Wang, a division of publishing powerhouse Farrar, Straus and Giroux, plans to release Gruber’s book, tentatively titled “Health Care Reform: What It Is, Why It’s Necessary, How it Works” this fall.

And if that's not enough to have you hanging out with the other geeks at the Comics Shop on release day, here's The Boston Herald:

Even one of the national health plan’s fiercest critics, Michael F. Cannon of the free market Cato Institute in Washington D.C., tipped his hat to Gruber’s comic book.

“I’ve got to hand it to him,” said Cannon, the think tank’s director of health policy studies. “It’s a brilliant idea.”

Ok, seriously....I know the Cato Institute.  I've met people who work there.  Michael F. Cannon of the Cato Institute is not quite telling the truth, IMHO.  He does not think ObamaCare® The Comic Book is a brilliant idea.  He's giving Jonathan Gruber enough rope (and encouragement) to hang himself. 

Michael F. Cannon and the Cato Institute had rather have access to this comic book than a free month in The Playboy Archives.  They can't wait to get a copy.  Neither can I. 

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Here's a shout-out to my ex-boss, Marvel Variants.  (We're still employed by the same company, he's just put a buffer between us, a new guy who will soon be known on these pages as Colonel Klink.  The new guy looks a LOT like Werner Klemperer.) 

Mr. Variants, you have made a ton of money by hoarding and re-selling "variant" copies of comic books.  That's why your blog is called....Marvel Variants. 

Do you think that Mr. Gruber will publish a variant SEIU version of his book, outlining the waivers that they've received from the program?  Will there be a collectible United Auto Workers Waiver cover?  Perhaps one that sells for a different price? 
Mr. Variants, do you have any interest at all in persuading Mr. Gruber to issue a variant Baptist Retirement version of the comic book?  Complete with a cover depicting Obama shaking hands with the director of the Southern Baptist Annuity Board ?  (Hey, look at #714 on the waiver list.)

I can't wait.  I just can't wait.   

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