Healthcare
Inaction
 In
1984 about 10,000 Americans were dying of AIDS.
That's largely an estimate as solid figures weren't
available
until 1987, but it's close. Deaths from AIDS eventually
peaked at 40,000 in 1994 and began a swift decline
but no thanks to
the Reagan administration which largely did nothing
but stick its fingers
in its ears and
complain loudly about all those damn trees
polluting the air.
By some strange coincidence it's estimated that
a similar number of
unlucky
Americans, about 10,000,
will die in 2014 as
a result of not having access to affordable health
care, but only in states that aren't implementing
Obamacare. (See
chart, below.) You would probably not be surprised
if I told you that all of these states are run
by Republicans.
Fortunately, as the Affordable Care Act inevitably
comes online in more and more states the number
of needless deaths will fall, but it's no thanks
to
the
GOP. For now, I'm just enjoying painting a picture
of our conservative pals as the heartless monsters
they are and have always been.
------------
When you watch broadcast networks
on your cable system, I.E. NBC, CBS, ABC, what you
may not know is that
the cable companies have to pay retransmission fees
in order to do so. In 2001 this amounted to a whole
$11 million dollars. In 2014 they're estimated to
cost the cable companies $2.5 billion dollars, and
it's only going to get worse. (See chart below)
When
I learned this I said a lot of unpleasant words,
and I don't even have cable. Why? Because where
do you think all that extra money is coming from?
That's right, you, the cable-consuming public, are
an ATM machine with a remote control, you are the
frog in the slowly warming pot, with all the
Duck Dynasty
and
Honey
Boo-boo
you can eat.
-----------------
One last self-serving thing... I
visited another web comic today, a pretty good one,
but it had eight
ads of all sizes and colors plastered all over the
page. It was more ad than anything else.
Raging Pencils has one ad. I hope you appreciate
that.
=Lefty=
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