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To those who say "live and let live," I agree with that sentiment but when it's my tax dollars going to support those who start falling ill due to smoking, I sort of take issue. Obviously, not ALL smokers will need medical attention and nowhere near ALL of them will be on gov't assistance, but a fair number of them are/will be and that sort of p*sses me off. For example, my MIL is now "disabled" due to have emphysema from smoking for the past like 40 years. She will soon be on Medicare (early) due to this. Before she qualified for SSDI, she was on SSI which gave her Medicaid and food stamps. Quite literally, the taxpayer is footing the bill for the effects of her smoking habit. Btw, she still smokes!!!!
I think we need to enact several laws that will ensure our tax dollars do not go to support anybody who has made bad choices in life. Everyone will be required to eat a steady diet of salad and saltine crackers. All people will have little personal bubbles that filter out all bacteria and viruses. So-called "extreme sports" will be banned because of the number of people who get injured doing so. Alcohol will be banned except for red wine, and you will only be able to buy one glass worth of wine a day. Smoking tobacco will result in an on-site execution, for the greater good.
Then and only then will we avoid having taxpayers foot the bill for people making bad choices.
I think we need to enact several laws that will ensure our tax dollars do not go to support anybody who has made bad choices in life. Everyone will be required to eat a steady diet of salad and saltine crackers. All people will have little personal bubbles that filter out all bacteria and viruses. So-called "extreme sports" will be banned because of the number of people who get injured doing so. Alcohol will be banned except for red wine, and you will only be able to buy one glass worth of wine a day. Smoking tobacco will result in an on-site execution, for the greater good.
Then and only then will we avoid having taxpayers foot the bill for people making bad choices.
It's easy to be sarcastic, and of course there is no verifiable way to legislate denying Medicare to smokers, but anyone who works in health care sees the scenario Andrea describes on a daily basis.
But it's an interesting topic to debate. It would certainly be one of the costs of socialized medicine. But I think it would set a dangerous precedent if we started denying people so-called "universal health coverage" because of their habits, past or present.
There's really no choice either way...up to now we've been okay with mandating hospitals treat everyone, regardless of condition or ability to pay.
Currently, hospitals eat the cost if someone has no insurance, and in the near future the government/taxpayers will eat the cost. Basically private enterprise will be passing the burden they've been forced to handle onto the public. How the public handles that, we shall see....
Although smokers generally get on my nerves, I usually have more patience with older smokers as there wasn't all the anti-smoking campaigns when many of them picked up their habits. The young smokers have no excuses with all the information out there about the harmful effects of cigarette smoke.
Come on, someone actualy needed to be told that taking something , lighting it on fire and sucking the fumes in was not good for you?
Come on, someone actualy needed to be told that taking something , lighting it on fire and sucking the fumes in was not good for you?
You obviously are very young. My mother was an RN and a smoker. I remember going to the store with a note and a dollar and purchasing a Hostess Twinkie, a pack of Kools and a 16 oz pepsi and getting change back.
If you grew up prior to the 1980's, smoking was considered glamorous. In the 60's and 70's there was a myriad of commercials advertising various brands complete with glamour and catchy jingles. Cigarette packs did not come with warnings and the deadly chemicals used in cigarettes today were non-existent. You may not be a smoker but I'm sure you like so many others (potheads, alcoholics, sex addicts etc) have your own crosses to bare.
FYI: Cigarettes didn't kill my mother, a drunk driver did.
Lots of different points to respond to here, so I'll try to do it in one post!
1) Re the thread: Statistically, at this point in US history, they're less educated. I don't think I've seen IQ studies but since IQ probably correlates with education they could easily be related: though the jump to causality is a different story. (Yes, I'm aware that smoking would likely at least slightly reduce oxygen to the brain, so there's a reasonable causal factor in there.) The Weiser study cited below indicates a non-causal relationship, at least according to the main researcher.
2) Re health costs: After the first few years of a total ban, health care costs would rise, particularly with increased old-age medical expenses (assuming here that the earlier deaths from smoking are true). See my "Taxes, Social Costs, and the MSA" for a short but well-referenced layout of the arguments:
At the moment, particularly when one includes the extra taxes that smokers pay, smokers are subsidizing the health care of NONsmokers.
3) Trimac, you asked, "Wouldn't you say the same about people with diet related illnesses to like heart disease?" One of the Appendices of my book was "Deaths Due To Eating." My figures were gross approximations but indicated that for the US about 900,000 deaths per year could be laid at the doorstep of diet. The CDC or somesuch came up with similar figures (Maybe a bit lower? 600,000 or so?) several years ago and the Antismokers threw a royal hissy-fit until they got the numbers changed so they'd be back below smoking.
Well, this fella smoked like a trooper and it never appeared to shackle his shrewd abilty to crack a case. He always seemed pretty on the ball to me anyhow.
Wouldn't you say the same about people with diet related illnesses to like heart disease? Lifestyle diseases are the number one killer and account for most of the money we spend on ill people.
I agree though. I wanna see my tax dollars spent on getting people to live RIGHT, so we won't end up where we are now.
I think we need to enact several laws that will ensure our tax dollars do not go to support anybody who has made bad choices in life. Everyone will be required to eat a steady diet of salad and saltine crackers. All people will have little personal bubbles that filter out all bacteria and viruses. So-called "extreme sports" will be banned because of the number of people who get injured doing so. Alcohol will be banned except for red wine, and you will only be able to buy one glass worth of wine a day. Smoking tobacco will result in an on-site execution, for the greater good.
Then and only then will we avoid having taxpayers foot the bill for people making bad choices.
Salad is mostly water and saltines are nothing but bad carbs.
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Well, this fella smoked like a trooper and it never appeared to shackle his shrewd abilty to crack a case. He always seemed pretty on the ball to me anyhow.
