Since its release, "HealtH" has been viewed as a parody, and satire, of the U.S. political scene at the time of its filming; critic Daniel O'Brien also noticed "the parallels between the election and the U.S. Presidency explicitly spelt out (several times)" in the film. In his book "A Cinema of Loneliness", Robert Phillip Kolker stressed this aspect, writing that "Altman creates a world that is a parody of a political phenomenon that is itself already a parody of show business, for political conventions always mediate the realities of power with the signifiers of spectacle. "[HealtH" is, finally, a representation of a representation."