healthcare
Original: healthcare on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Bearded man (to reader): Hey geeks, it's Zach. I want to tell you about something that happened to us recently.
Bearded man: I live in Charlottesville, a (usually) quiet college town in Western Virginia. I recently attended an emergency meeting of local freelancers and small business owners.
Bearded man: The reason for the meeting? The price for health insurance increased about 240% in our county this year. That's a precise figure because there is literally only ONE provider for individuals.
Bearded man: Just to stick some numbers on that — a plan that was $13,000 a year is now $33,000 a year. We've read of people whose plans will cost $50,000 a year if you count their out of pocket costs.
Narration (bearded man, over meeting flashback): People were pretty desperate.
Woman with gray hair (at the meeting): I seriously considered that I could save money by divorcing my husband so the kids and I would get subsidized.
Narration: Another person had been told that you could hire someone in order to get group insurance, then fire them. But she didn't think it was ethical (or legal for that matter).
Woman with gray hair: That seems like COLLUSION to me!
Narration: Another woman had been told, in seriousness, that she ought to have a baby to secure a lower rate.
Woman with glasses (dark hair): It's not the birth story you imagine telling your kid one day.
Narration: A number of people were simply planning to do less work, artificially lowering their income, in order to qualify for subsidies. Not a stellar economic policy.
Narration: We discussed possible strategies and alternative forms of healthcare for over an hour, with no good solution in sight.
Narration: The one moment of levity came when one person suggested "taking a cyanide tablet" as an alternative to paying for emergency care without insurance. (Sound: HAHAHA over a building at night.)
Bearded man (Zach, to reader): This wasn't a room full of people trying to cheat the system. It was people who were living the American dream — running small but successful businesses — and trying to decide whether to strangle their dreams in favor of stability.
Bearded man (with woman in glasses beside him): To be clear, this isn't going to turn into me asking for money. Zach and I have had a lot of good years thanks to all of you.
Bearded man: But, we like to think one of this country's strengths is how we value individualists, oddballs, and eccentrics, for better and worse.
Bearded man: Healthcare like we have here effectively cuts those people out. It says that if you're doing something interesting that people like — whether it's unpopular political commentary or being an interior design consultant — you'd better do it within someone else's corporate structure, or you'd better make no money doing it.
Bearded man: Right now it costs about $10,000 per American to provide healthcare. That's not per family. It's per PERSON. It's a lot more than any comparable country, which suggests it's at core a policy problem.
Woman with glasses: Honestly, we don't know the solution. We aren't healthcare experts. All we know is that the current healthcare system is starting to strangle our demographic.
Woman with glasses: We're lucky our jobs are portable. We can move to get a better rate if we have to. A lot of people CAN'T. And if they can't afford health insurance that costs more than rent, they'll have to choose between closing up shop or simply going without.
Woman with glasses: Our county is basically ground zero for sudden huge increases on very small business. But if insurance premiums continue to spike like this, a lot more self-employed people in your town are going to start considering their options.
Woman with glasses: These aren't just borderline starving artists like us. They're the guy who runs that great used book store or the lady who planned your wedding.
Woman with glasses: So, we're basically asking politicians, activists, or anyone with the power to effect change: can we PLEASE have a healthcare system that works for small businesses?
Bearded man: Pretty please?
Caption (bottom): (Characters at meeting are not intended to resemble real people!)
Votey: Handwritten text in a hand-drawn box: "Thanks for reading, geeks."
Bearded man: I live in Charlottesville, a (usually) quiet college town in Western Virginia. I recently attended an emergency meeting of local freelancers and small business owners.
Bearded man: The reason for the meeting? The price for health insurance increased about 240% in our county this year. That's a precise figure because there is literally only ONE provider for individuals.
Bearded man: Just to stick some numbers on that — a plan that was $13,000 a year is now $33,000 a year. We've read of people whose plans will cost $50,000 a year if you count their out of pocket costs.
Narration (bearded man, over meeting flashback): People were pretty desperate.
Woman with gray hair (at the meeting): I seriously considered that I could save money by divorcing my husband so the kids and I would get subsidized.
Narration: Another person had been told that you could hire someone in order to get group insurance, then fire them. But she didn't think it was ethical (or legal for that matter).
Woman with gray hair: That seems like COLLUSION to me!
Narration: Another woman had been told, in seriousness, that she ought to have a baby to secure a lower rate.
Woman with glasses (dark hair): It's not the birth story you imagine telling your kid one day.
Narration: A number of people were simply planning to do less work, artificially lowering their income, in order to qualify for subsidies. Not a stellar economic policy.
Narration: We discussed possible strategies and alternative forms of healthcare for over an hour, with no good solution in sight.
Narration: The one moment of levity came when one person suggested "taking a cyanide tablet" as an alternative to paying for emergency care without insurance. (Sound: HAHAHA over a building at night.)
Bearded man (Zach, to reader): This wasn't a room full of people trying to cheat the system. It was people who were living the American dream — running small but successful businesses — and trying to decide whether to strangle their dreams in favor of stability.
Bearded man (with woman in glasses beside him): To be clear, this isn't going to turn into me asking for money. Zach and I have had a lot of good years thanks to all of you.
Bearded man: But, we like to think one of this country's strengths is how we value individualists, oddballs, and eccentrics, for better and worse.
Bearded man: Healthcare like we have here effectively cuts those people out. It says that if you're doing something interesting that people like — whether it's unpopular political commentary or being an interior design consultant — you'd better do it within someone else's corporate structure, or you'd better make no money doing it.
Bearded man: Right now it costs about $10,000 per American to provide healthcare. That's not per family. It's per PERSON. It's a lot more than any comparable country, which suggests it's at core a policy problem.
Woman with glasses: Honestly, we don't know the solution. We aren't healthcare experts. All we know is that the current healthcare system is starting to strangle our demographic.
Woman with glasses: We're lucky our jobs are portable. We can move to get a better rate if we have to. A lot of people CAN'T. And if they can't afford health insurance that costs more than rent, they'll have to choose between closing up shop or simply going without.
Woman with glasses: Our county is basically ground zero for sudden huge increases on very small business. But if insurance premiums continue to spike like this, a lot more self-employed people in your town are going to start considering their options.
Woman with glasses: These aren't just borderline starving artists like us. They're the guy who runs that great used book store or the lady who planned your wedding.
Woman with glasses: So, we're basically asking politicians, activists, or anyone with the power to effect change: can we PLEASE have a healthcare system that works for small businesses?
Bearded man: Pretty please?
Caption (bottom): (Characters at meeting are not intended to resemble real people!)
Votey: Handwritten text in a hand-drawn box: "Thanks for reading, geeks."
Alt text
A tall multi-panel SMBC comic that is unusually earnest rather than a gag. A bearded man (who identifies himself as Zach) and a woman with glasses speak directly to the reader against plain green backgrounds, interspersed with pink-tinted flashback panels showing people seated at a town meeting. The man explains that he lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, and attended an emergency meeting of freelancers and small business owners because the price of individual health insurance in their county jumped about 240% in one year, since only one provider serves individuals — a roughly $13,000 plan became $33,000, with some plans projected near $50,000 a year including out-of-pocket costs. Flashback panels show desperate attendees: a gray-haired woman who considered divorcing her husband to get subsidies, another who was told she could hire and then fire someone for group insurance (calling it 'collusion'), a dark-haired woman in glasses told to have a baby for a lower rate ('it's not the birth story you imagine telling your kid one day'), and people planning to work less to qualify for subsidies. The one joke of the meeting — someone suggesting 'taking a cyanide tablet' instead of paying for emergency care — floats as 'HAHAHA' over a night building. The couple stress they aren't asking for money and have had good years; they argue that expensive healthcare punishes individualists, oddballs, and the self-employed, costs about $10,000 per American (more than comparable countries), and is strangling small businesses — not just artists but the used-bookstore owner or wedding planner. They plead for politicians or activists to please build a healthcare system that works for small businesses, ending with the man saying 'Pretty please?' A small caption notes the meeting characters aren't meant to resemble real people. The votey is a hand-drawn box containing handwritten text: 'Thanks for reading, geeks.'
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.