Recent Comments

1. about 15 years ago on Ted Rall

   One would take the first option “rather than” the second. The use of “rather then” in the second panel is incorrect.

2. over 15 years ago on Ted Rall

   deviouslylost, I don’t see where your predictions are coming from. “Higher unemployment rates”–comparing the years in which Republican presidents submitted budgets against those in which Democratic presidents submitted budgets from Kennedy to Clinton, Democrats did better on unemployment–5.1% to 6.75%.

   “a completely failed education system”–Please explain how recreating segregation by sapping money from public schools to run private schools for those who can afford them will help the state of education in this country.

   “more of us, tax payers, supporting illegal income earning “baby’s mamas.”“–oh, come on. Say “welfare queen”. Say it. You know you want to. Then go on about how racist it is that black people don’t seem to want to vote Republican.

   “our military will be cut, leaving us more vulnerable to terrorist attacks”–I refer you to those socialist hippies at the RAND Corporation, in monograph MG741-1. (Google it.) In short, military force has historically been utterly ineffective at dealing with terrorist groups; those groups that have ended were almost always either defeated by police tactics or joined the political process.

   But I suppose that’s likely too nuanced for you, right?

3. over 15 years ago on Ted Rall

   ConservativeBob: “This supposed “most” of the people that want universal healthcare is a farce or otherwise we’d have it.”

   Yes, if only there were a way to actually quantify the opinions of the American people. Perhaps by asking the same question of a small but representative sample, then extrapolating to the opinions of the whole? What mad, mad science!

   Oh, wait. Go see www.pollingreport.com/health3.htm and note the consistent roughly two-thirds majority supporting government-provided universal health care.

   “Why would we want a system that will raise our already large tax burden?”

   Government-provided healthcare is cheaper. Nations with socialized health insurance have a healthier population and spend less to get it. (Of course, they don’t have an insurance industry growing fat off the overhead.) The sensible comparison you should be making there is between paying for healthcare with taxes and paying regular insurance premiums, along with the constant threat of losing said insurance if you lose your job. Unless, that is, you think that money you spend on necessities is somehow magically different from tax money that goes to the same program.

   “Not too mention that a large portion of these poor poor uninsured people […] simply don’t care to pay for yet another bill (ie: healthy young people that don’t even need health insurance yet)”

   This is exactly why health insurance fails if not everyone has it. Here, I’ll explain the adverse selection death spiral.

   Health insurance costs money. A certain proportion of young, healthy folk bet that they won’t get sick, and save money by not getting insurance. The average premium has to rise, because there are fewer young, healthy people subsidizing it. More people are priced out of being insured. Premiums have to rise until only the very sickest will bother paying for it, and you’re back to having almost everyone uninsured. That is why socialized health insurance has to include mandated coverage; it’s the same reason why you can’t just opt out of social security if you feel like betting that you won’t need it.