Letters to the Editor
uptoolate
Published Letters: 95 Editor's Choice: 2
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The public always pays for it
[Read the article: Rudy's bogus healthcare stats]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]On the one hand, you have these lying bastards on the right screaming “socialized medicine” when healthcare is funded publicly, and fairly, that is, based on somewhat progressive taxation. They categorically ignore the fact that healthcare is funded publicly, and unfairly, in many ways.
- By the general public, aka consumers, in the price of everything they purchase from companies that provide health insurance as part of their employee compensation.
- By taxpayer subsidies to outrageously expensive emergency-room and other care used by those who cannot afford health insurance.
- By insurance-premium-payer subsidies to the freeloaders who can afford insurance but would simply rather spend that money on a new SUV.
On the other hand, you have otherwise sensible folks on the left who parrot the nonsense in Sicko about how healthcare in single-payer environments is "free". They make themselves fodder for right-wing cannons who like to claim that liberals think publicly funded anything is like manna from heaven.
Healthcare ain't free, under the U.S. system or single-payer. The public always pays for it, see above. Always. The question is whether there is some fairness in the way that they pay for it. And, I might add, in how much of what they pay goes to healthcare and how much of it goes to pure waste: mountains of red tape, empires of paper pushers, armies of lawyers fighting other armies of lawyers.
Guess which country’s citizens pay the most for the waste, by far and away?
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WTF?
[Read the article: Stop lying to yourself. You love Dennis Kucinich]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Traister writes:
"It's true, and I suspect many of you think it to yourselves ...."
Emphasis mine, duh. I hear this phrasing all the time, and have to wonder what it means. Something different from, say, thinking "to" other people? And how would you do that anyway?
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Better than a golf cart
[Read the article: The Smart car is coming]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It’s no wonder the teeny weeny car is popular in Texas. Have you ever tried to walk across a Houston megamall parking lot? In August? Are you f*king kidding?
Stash one of those babies in the back of the Tahoe and cruise to the door of mall in style. Park it in the food court, the restroom, wherever, while you shop. Cool!
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Are you sure?
[Read the article: Colorado: Human rights for eggs]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I seriously doubt that these folks want equal rights for all microscopic forms of human life. I mean, some percentage of the little critters are bound to be gay, right?
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Of course, everyone's lot is a mix of things ...
[Read the article: Fantasies in black and white]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]... but can you begin to imagine how someone like, say, George W. Bush would have wound up had he been born black? And poor?
Salon should hold a contest for the most creative answer to that one.
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The theist delusion
[Read the article: The atheist delusion]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]God created the universe.
Of all things within the universe, humans are special. Really special.
You can't prove otherwise.
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It's About F******* Time
[Read the article: The witch ain't dead, and Chris Matthews is a ding-dong]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Whatever your view of her politics, Hillary Clinton has been the target of what is arguably the longest, most effective, and least-deserved smear campaign in American political history. The people who fell for that campaign--particularly "progressives"--should be profoundly ashamed of themselves.
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HRC: Guilty Until She Can Prove a Negative
[Read the article: Was the New Hampshire vote stolen?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Manjoo writes:
"Still, while we can be pretty sure that Clinton didn't steal the race, we don't know -- if you were to be called in to a court of law and asked to prove that she didn't steal it, you wouldn't be able to."
Do the Hillary Haters EVER give it a rest?
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Nader '08
[Read the article: Why I'm still not for Hillary Clinton]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Even if he's not running, Ms. Kissling and her fellow More Mao Than Thou types can always write him in, should Hillary be the Dems' nominee.
Worked out so well last time, doncha know?
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I Second Juliebird
[Read the article: The race vs. gender war]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Remember that GOP campaign event where a despicable white woman asked John McCain, how he would “beat the bitch” (Hillary) and nobody — not McCain, not anyone in the entire room — called her on it? And now McCain is the GOP frontrunner.
Can you remotely imagine the analogous situation with a black man asking McCain how he would "nail the nigger" (Obama) and nobody calling him on it? That would be the absolute END of John McCain.
There’s a good reason you never hear of a “Bradley effect” — whites dishonestly telling pollsters they’ll vote for a black candidate — when it comes to female candidates. Some racists are embarrassed by their sickness; sexists, on the other hand, proclaim their misogyny with pride.
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Good grief, everyone!
[Read the article: Having it both ways]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]He may be on the tail end of that generation, but 'Bama is still a baby boomer. I'd be a helluva lot more concerned if he HADN'T tried drugs in his youth.
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'Bama and the Mittster ...
[Read the article: Barack Obama: "Committed Christian -- Called to Bring Change"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]... should double up on those flyers, just do a cut and paste on their respective names and save some money on production.
Can you imagine if the contest is between the two of them? "Muslim" vs. Mormon!?!
What are the god-fearing "Christians" of our fine nation EVER gonna do?
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Midwife connection intriguing
[Read the article: The abortion doctor]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I thought it was very interesting that the author mentioned she had been harrassed having delivered babies as a midwife. I was disappointed, however, that the interviewer failed to ask her more about that.
Specifically, I have read (don't recall when or where) that one of the reasons (perhaps THE reason) that abortion was outlawed in the U.S. (late 19th/early 20th century?) was that docs wanted to put midwives out of business and this was a way to do it.
To explain, it was very hard to make a living just delivering babies, as they tend to come at odd times and labor tends to last as long as it wants -- not as long as any human mortal could necessarily anticipate. So in 19th century America, midwives (all female) managed to support themselves by doing abortions on the side.
Emerging OB/Gyn docs (all male) searched for a way to get midwives out of the way, so they could corner the delivery biz. They figured that by lobbying to make the midwives' most predictable source of income - abortion - illegal, they could do just that.
And so they did. With negative repercussions for the entirety of womens' reproductive health care, repercussions that endure to this day.
Is this theory accurate? And if so, I would love to hear more (in letters) from others reading these posts.
Thanks.