Telling a story is about connecting the dots, sometimes literally.

National Geographic recently published a chart examining the ROI of the United States health care system:

As designer Oliver Uberti notes in a follow-up post,

“Designing a graphic is like writing a story. You can’t include all your material, nor can you present it with uniform emphasis. To engage readers, you have to selectively edit and then order your information into a narrative. In other words, what is most important for people to see and in what order?”

This reminds me of Mark Twain’s observation about “lies, damned lies, and statistics.” A grain of truth is sometimes more powerful than the whole thing and few things are more complicated than our health care system. And when I consider certain ridiculous memes, I’m left with the inescapable feeling that people’s desire for simplicity works against healthcare reform.