Health care reform

I don’t usually draw cartoons on national issues, but I thought this cartoon did a pretty good job of summing up my feelings on our new health care bill.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad the Democrats passed a health care reform bill.

It's good that insurance company's can no longer cry "pre-existing condition” and drop paying customers as soon as they get sick. I'm glad kids won't be denied insurance on the basis of pre-existing conditions anymore, and it's good that millions more Americans will have access to health insurance.

But for as massive as this bill is, there is very little in it that will actually make health care cost less and that is the crisis we are facing. Health care is too darn expensive, whether or not you have insurance to pay for it.

This bill needed to include serious tort reform and incentives to end the obscene practice of paying doctors by the amount of tests they order and not by the health of their patients. If you could somehow add provisions like these the bill, it would have been a lot better.

Of course these are conservative ideas, and the GOP was too busy orchestrating the president’s Waterloo and calling everyone and their dog a socialist to seriously help craft good legislation

Edgewater Bracket

It's in our contract as cartoonists to do a bracket-themed editorial cartoon in March. Well not really, but it feels like that as the editorial cartoon websites are inundated with March Madison cartoons. Some of them are pretty good, some of them pretty lame. I thought this one was pretty funny, but it was hard to fill out all of the slots.

I had about 12 great ideas for matchups, but I needed to fill out 18 slots for a full bracket. I had blank slots on the bracket pretty late into the afternoon on Friday, even after I'd finished drawing the rest of the editorial cartoon.

Luckily, my editor, Scott Milfred, was able to track down Dean Mosiman, the Wisconsin State Journal's city government reporter, to find out who would be an appropriate pairing with "TIF money." Sometimes, it takes a village to draw a funny and accurate cartoon.

Blog updates

I haven't been updating this blog, because I've been working a blog for the Wisconsin State Journal. Go get out the blog at http://host.madison.com/wsj/opinion/cartoon/. From now on I'll try to post updates on this blog as well.

Here is today's entry:

It’s been fun drawing cartoons about Jeff Wood. Wood is a state lawmaker from Chippewa Falls who thinks it’s OK to drive around town when you're three sheets to the wind or hopped up on pain pills and cough syrup. This is the third cartoon I’ve drawn about him, and I think the meanest (I’ve linked those other cartoons to the blog).

The cartoon is mean because I feel betrayed by Jeff Wood.

I saw an interview with Wood several weeks ago on TV and actually started to feel sorry for the guy. He fessed up to his mistakes and was in the process of confronting his demons. He had publicly said he would not be running for reelection and entered treatment.

That was several weeks ago.

Now, Wood is fighting for his job, and is hinting that he might run again (Wood said his constituents support him and he believes he can be "an example of how you overcome your obstacles rather than let them defeat you."). He is even fighting two of his three DUI charges, saying that it's not his fault because he can't remember the incidents.

The man who at one time was taking responsiblity for his actions, now is trying to deflect the blame and play the vicitm with an eye toward the fall election.

I don’t know how Jeff Wood’s struggle with addiction is going (and for his sake, I hope it’s going well) but as a politician he’s definitely relapsed.