Two Pictures Of A Thousand Words

Ken AshfordHealth CareLeave a Comment

Nate Silver at 538 did something kind of clever:

Gallup did something pretty cool in connection with their latest health care survey, which was to provide the verbatim responses (.xls) of the rationales given by people who would tell their Congressman to vote for or against the current health care bills, respectively.

I ran the responses through Wordle, a word-cloud generating tool, omitting certain words that were parts of speech or were otherwise nongermane.

Here are the results:

4434349896_31cc767677_o
4433576135_7614c92f95_o 

Obviously, the top picture represents those who want health care reform, with the plain argument "People…need….insurance". 

The bottom picture represents the anti's — concerns about the "government cost".  Interestingly, the bottom picture represents a sort of misunderstanding about health care reform.  It's not really about a government program (sadly).  But those opposed to it, largely misled by the Republican messaging over the past few months, seem to think that it is.

In any event, it clearly shows the mindset of the polarized view on healthcare.  Need vs. Cost.  Pay vs. Afford.  Etc.