Eric writes, “This is an analysis on the Chuck Jones short ‘So Much for So Little’ — a documentary cartoon produced and paid for by the American government in 1949 that makes a stark case for public healthcare that everyone chips in a little for, in the interest of the greater good. This topic’s always relevant, but with the recent monologue from Jimmy Kimmel, I think it’s even more so this week.”
“So Much for So Little” makes a simple argument: Taxpayer-subsidized community-based healthcare could cost peanuts on an individual level if everyone paid for it, and its benefits are worth far, far more than the money spent. Send everyone in Paul Ryan’s office a link to the damn thing. Please. Just do it. In fact, send them to the CDC’s webpage for the National Center for Health Statistics, too, just so they can get all the updated data on the topics the short tackles.
Jones’s film highlights needs we still have today (some of which are worse). Among them: sewage treatment and pollution (see: pipeline, Keystone XL); vaccinations (see: Trump, Donald J., skepticism of); funding for hot lunches at public schools and school health departments (see: DeVos, Betsy); blood tests (see: Pence, Mike, and the Indiana AIDS crisis); subtle hints at getting tested for STDs (see: Parenthood, Planned); exercise, obesity, cancer, heart diseases, diabetes (see: Big Food, Big Tobacco, Big Sugar, and all those other Bigs); and disparity in public health services between well-off (see: white, upper middle class) and poverty-stricken (see: every other) communities (see: Two Americas).
The film was produced during the Truman era, in the idealism of the Greatest Generation post-WWII, and guess what? Partisanship and capitalism and racist zoning policies shattered its idealistic dream that Americans might actually pay communally for their health as well as that of their neighbors and fellow citizens. Instead, we’ve been left with the dreams of a man who has literally pledged, in all seriousness, his commitment to “destroying the health care system.”
Chuck Jones Repudiated Republican Healthcare Quibbles 70 Years Ago [John Maher/Dot and Line]