geneb's Comments
Nonsense.
First, by your kindly rationale, we should stop doing colonoscopies and mammograms. Look at the savings when people die early. YAY!
The truth is: smokers die sooner, but MORE EXPENSIVELY--especially to medicare/medicaid. Erbitux for lung cancer, eg, costs $15g's a month. Nonsmokers live longer but healthier lives, with less costly medical expenses at end. Their lives are more productive, being less encumbered by debilitating diseases like COPD, cancer, heart disease, etc. Smokers have 50 per cent more absenteeism than non-smokers.
Consider also:
--The cost to families having to deal with 1 less wage-earner, or 1 less child-care giver. How do you quantify the loss of a grandparent no longer there to give wisdom and guidance, to share the duties of child-rearing, to ease a parent's burden?
--The cost to a son, daughter or sibling who has to drop everything to care for an ill relative.
--The cost to all of us of children no longer able to afford college. How DO you quantify the loss of a child's education from a parent who dies early?
Your vile, ugly myth was first promulgated by Philip Morris to fight a Czech tax hike. PM apologized, but the PR gets regurgitated by the unconscionable and the uninformed.
You swallow tobacco propaganda too easily.
First, by your kindly rationale, we should stop doing colonoscopies and mammograms. Look at the savings when people die early. YAY!
The truth is: smokers die sooner, but MORE EXPENSIVELY--especially to medicare/medicaid. Erbitux for lung cancer, eg, costs $15g's a month. Nonsmokers live longer but healthier lives, with less costly medical expenses at end. Their lives are more productive, being less encumbered by debilitating diseases like COPD, cancer, heart disease, etc. Smokers have 50 per cent more absenteeism than non-smokers.
Consider also:
--The cost to families having to deal with 1 less wage-earner, or 1 less child-care giver. How do you quantify the loss of a grandparent no longer there to give wisdom and guidance, to share the duties of child-rearing, to ease a parent's burden?
--The cost to a son, daughter or sibling who has to drop everything to care for an ill relative.
--The cost to all of us of children no longer able to afford college. How DO you quantify the loss of a child's education from a parent who dies early?
Your vile, ugly myth was first promulgated by Philip Morris to fight a Czech tax hike. PM apologized, but the PR gets regurgitated by the unconscionable and the uninformed.
You swallow tobacco propaganda too easily.
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Ah, yes, that study by the famous scientist, "oOPonyOo"
Give me a break. Real studies by real scientists find that taxes don't begin to cover the societal costs.
Also, the Netherlands is the smokingest country in Europe, AND the most ignorant about the health effects. See this month's BMJ: http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.d2138.full