TODAY'S PAPER
48° Good Morning
48° Good Morning

Single insurer?

Health
We cartoonists always troll for irony. In hopes of ensuring a strong medical marketplace, Americans turned over their personal health care to – of all people – insurance executives. Now, with Anthem buying Cigna, the nation is down to just three major health insurers. And no marketplace.

Obamacare wins

ACA
That Sen. Ted Cruz has availed himself of his arch-nemesis (Obamacare) is unsurprising. His wife took leave from her job – and benefits – to help Ted “run for President,” so faced with the choice of the crushing cost of COBRA, the high price of buying health insurance on the open insurance market, or enrolling under an Affordable Care Act plan, they naturally chose the least expensive, most comprehensive one for their family.

Science says never mind

Food
Since perhaps the alarming advent of the first prehistoric human love handles, people have used the science at hand to dictate a punishing regimen of culinary denial. For more than three decades, we’ve been urged to forgo the pleasure of cholesterol-laden foods. Surely there’ll be no hard feelings now that science says never mind.

The white whale

ACA
The “productive” GOP-led House of Representatives just passed its 56th Obamacare repeal vote. Even Herman Melville would have been shocked.

The jab

The jab
The resurgence of the completely preventable measles in the U.S. is nuts. We now live in an era so safe, cushy and comfortable that some people refuse to grasp that it wasn’t always this way. Mass vaccinations have helped humanity to thrive. Some also feel so safe that they replace scientific data with their own well-meaning, but debunked opinions on very serious illnesses and conditions. For this there are very real and dangerous consequences. I hope an enterprising scientific team is testing a vaccination for that.

Indivisible?

Ebola Divided
I have been asked whether it’s hard to draw cartoons about Ebola. Yes, drawing about a deadly virus is difficult — perhaps impossible (even though editorial cartoons aren’t supposed to be just funny). But, as always, it doesn’t take long for politics to seep into the process, and therein lies the fertile material for the cartoonist.

Jailed by Ebola

Ebola
​Brave, selfless health workers returning from Ebola stricken countries haven’t been getting the ticker tape parade and heroes’ welcome they deserve. What we need is an Ebola Cza… Oh never mind.

Health insurance headaches

Obama
​A year into the Affordable Care Act is undoubtedly revealing to a whole new segment of the population that health insurance is no panacea.

The American response to Ebola

The American response to Ebola
I can’t imagine us sending single-payer health care to help Liberia. That would be downright un-American. President Barack Obama called the Ebola crisis a threat to world security as he ordered up to 3,000 U.S. military personnel to the region along with an aggressive effort to train health care workers and deliver field hospitals, the Associated Press reports. Under the plan, the government could end up devoting $1 billion to containing the disease. “If the outbreak is not stopped now, we could be looking at hundreds of thousands of people affected, with profound economic, political and security implications for all of us,” Obama said after briefings in Atlanta with doctors from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and from Emory University, where Brantly and two other aid workers with Ebola have been treated. Obama acted under pressure from regional leaders and international aid organizations who pleaded for a heightened U.S. role in confronting the deadly virus. He called on other countries to also quickly supply more health workers, equipment and money.