Should Smokers Pay Extra Taxes For Universal Healthcare?

Originally posted by cahlmac
I am paying over 9 euros now for a pack of 20 cigarettes, just under 80% of which is tax.

A legal product that generates huge income for the government. How would it be right to have people who smoke pay more for health insurance?

And this is why you'll never see the U.S. government outlawing them.



Hell, they still pay subsidies to tobacco farmers.

If thats not the height of lunacy I don't know what is.

reply to post by ModernAcademia


You really have no clue to where the taxes for tobacco go... We already pay....

As of 2009, the federal excise tax on a pack of cigarettes is $1.01. This tax money goes to fund the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). The U.S. Department of Health and Human Serviceswww.ehow.com... -go.html?ref=Track2&utm_source=ask

Originally posted by jeantherapy

Originally posted by ShadeWolf
My personal opinion is we should just ban smoking altogether. That, or start actually regulating what the tobacco companies can put in them. If they only used tobacco leaf, I wouldn't have too much of a problem. But I'm pretty sure even the most dedicated chain-smoker will agree that benzene has no place in a product for human consumption.

Most smokers I see don't seem to be pursuing excellence in any aspect of their life. First of all it's a lot more difficult to exercise when your lungs can't get enough oxygen to your muscles via the bloodstream. The fact that at no time can I walk down the street without seeing cigarette butts and wrappers littered everywhere also indicates to me a lack of excellence. I constantly see cigarette smokers doing it with their kids in the car, sometimes with the windows up. I've been threatened with physical harm for expressing my opinion to those people, which displays their truly disgusting nature and lack of respect. Many smokers I have spoken with (I even have friends that do it, difficult as it is to tolerate their company) spend about $10 everyday on this habit and there is absolutely no return on this investment. A buzz that lasts all of a couple minutes and amounts mostly to a feeling of light-headedness? That's hardly worth it. Oh, but it relieves my tension and feelings of anxiety. Well, that's simply because you've trained yourself to react that way. You could train yourself to gain the same feeling from a cup of tea or even folding paper origami style. Whatever problems you have existed before the cigarette and they still exist after the cigarette, so the whole stress relief thing is just the placebo effect. Oh and no to mention the fact that when you give your money to cigarette companies you are handing your hard earned dollars over to an evil old man that cares nothiing for your health or well being. It is all of these reasons that I would never smoke another fag in my life, even if I somehow got the idea that I would enjoy it.

My dear dear Jeantherapy

Please allow me to reply to your diatribe on behalf of all smokers.

1. You state that smokers do not pursue excellence and, in your opinion, have difficulty getting oxygen to their muscles via the bloodstream

Are you aware that there are olympian athathetes who smoke? This is surely a group that can be cited as "pursuing excellence"
Are you aware that smokers make it to the top of Mount Everest far easier than non-smokers do?
Are you aware that there are smokers who work physically demanding jobs, and do so quite efficiently. As a matter of fact, smokers are more likely to have physical jobs because they are more heavily wieghted in the lower social economic classes. Are you suggesting that a construction worker is less physically effecient than some stock trader, who spends his day in a chair, on the phone?

I myself have smoked for over 40 years. I go to the gym and lift weights with a personal trainer twice a week, do another session with the same trainer for core exercises once per week and do cardio training another 4 times per week. And I am in my late 50s.

2. Show me your proof - and I do mean proof (not propaganda and authoritive statements) but actual proof that second hand smoke affects children.

The fact is that the rate of asthma in children has increased 800 % since the 1960s - in direct lockstep with the decrease of smoking in the population.

Think of it this way - man has always lived in environments heavily laced with smoke from the burning of organic material used for food and cooking. Our respiratory systems developed in the presence of this smoke for millenia. Childhood asthma was rare - until the 50s and 60s when we started heating our homes and cooking our food with cleaner burning sources of energy.

Asthma is a disease of hypersensensity to normal environmental contaminants - pollen, dust, cockroach poop, carpet fibers, toxic fumes from building materials including the plastics used in the construction of cars. etc etc.

The smoke from the burning of approximately 19 grams of dried leaves is a contaminant but a very very minor one in the presence of other contaminants.

Given the lack of evidence that smoking in the presence of children causes harm - please explain to me - who the hell are you to decide that it is your place to tell others how to raise their children?

Do you also approach your friends to tell them not to BBQ or light a campfire or light a candle, or light a wood stove or a fireplace in the presence of their children? Or do you simply consider that smokers alone are worthy of your unsolicited and unwanted comments?

What lack of oxygen do you speak of? I know that smokers have a slightly less concentration of oxygen in their blood stream than non-smokers but where is your proof that the minor difference affects performance?

Continued ....

And finally JeanTherapy - your last point - the point that smokers are "wasting' their money and giving it an evil old man.

So now you are also an expert on what pleasure people should seek in their lives?

Tell me - do you take vacations with your money? Do you understand that vacations are wasteful and that if you saved all the money you spend on vacations, over the course of a lifetime, you could die rich? Do you understand that corporations that provide transportation, hotels and restaurant meals car nothing about your health?

Do you drink? What a waste? Paying money to people who care nothing for your health?

So do you also provide financial advice to people who waste money on vacations, cars, motorcycles, mountain climbing and as a matter of fact - things that are only intended for pleasure?

Let us live without any kind of pleasure whatsoever - then we can all die rich!

Why are smokers alone in this group of people who are not allowed to spend their own money on things they enjoy?

Tired of control freaks

reply to post by TiredofControlFreaks


Please cite the specific recommendation I made, for I don't recall making any. I don't recall making even the faintest suggestion that anybody even give up smoking. I can see that somebody calling themselves TiredofControlFreaks might be a little paranoid. I didn't provide any proofs because it should seem apparent that everything I said was opinion based on personal observations. And if I ever take a vacation it's a vacation from people, humans are nuts.

reply to post by jeantherapy


Jeantherapy

Are you now denying you made the statements that I directly quoted?

Tired of Control Freaks

reply to post by TiredofControlFreaks


Would everyone tell me what they think of the idea of 80 % of the population voting to impose taxes and extra fees on a minority population of 20 %?

The United States is a republic with a constitution to protect the rights of the minority. Canada has a parliamentary system of justice with a constituition to protect the rights of the minority.

Does this remind anyone of two wolves and sheep voting to decide what's for dinner?

A government that is big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take everything you have! First make the public hate smokers by describing them as filthy and inconsiderate. Then convince the public through propaganda that smokers are hurting others. Then convince the public to financially rape smokers (something no one minds as long as they are not the one's paying).

Then - move on to the next group - looks like fat people are next but drinkers will soon follow.

Tired of Control Freaks

reply to post by TiredofControlFreaks


Certainly not, I want to know which of those statements is a proposal to remove your smokers' rights. Pay special attention to the way I phrased things. Nothing in there was a command or even a request, and my closing comment was a statement about why I have made the choice I have.

"Given the lack of evidence that smoking in the presence of children causes harm - please explain to me - who the hell are you to decide that it is your place to tell others how to raise their children? "

I do not require numbers to support my position that smoking cigarettes (or anything) in a closed up vehicle (which was the scenario I originally mentioned, no other) is indefensibly rotten - the proof I require is the look on a kid's face after they get their first whiff of mommy's necessary nerve tonic. (Did I mention nicotine is actually a poison? en.wikipedia.org... www.ehow.com...)

I just can't believe anyone can take the position that forcing children to breathe this when it's just as easy to do it away from them could ever be acceptable. Again, I haven't instructed you to do anything or made any attempt to abscond with your rights or threaten your fragile existence.

I propose that they will want to tax meat eaters as well.

Hitler was hardcore anti smoking and a vegetarian after all.

Haha, just realized something funny. Hitler must have been a vegetarian because it has the word arian at the end. (Joke not to be taken seriously).

reply to post by AGWskeptic


I don't know where your getting your numbers but a good 50% of cigarette cost is tax, at the least. The tax generated is double your figures....

Considering my smoking habit has never caused a single doctor visit

Considering my cigs are TAXED to the max and the government gets the taxes for their ahem deleteds

Considering my spouse's obesity and obesity related illnesses and medicine side effects - has cost us (personally over $200 grand) and who knows how much he cost the insurances and government

Considering your idea - we should ALSO TAX:

Fat people
Old people
Babies
Teenagers - especially male teenagers
Non-monogomous people
Drivers
Anybody who drinks or uses illegal substances
Sunbathers
AND
Everybody who breathes the polluted air or gets mosquito bitten.

reply to post by jeantherapy


JeanTherapy

I never said you made any recommendations. I am responding point-by-point to your opinions and your escpeically rude behavior of confronting smokers over how they raise their children.

Tired of Control Freaks

reply to post by jeantherapy


And again Jeantherapy - I challenge your notion of a "closed" environment. Such environments do not typically have 4 windows and active ventilation.

And I ask you again - have you confronted others about burning other organic material in the presence of children or is your self-rightous ire reserved solely for smokers?

You have the right to your opinion - and you have the right to express it - I hope you equally understand that others have the equal right to knock you down for it

Tired of Control Freaks

Originally posted by Plugin
Smokers already pay with the crazy taxes on sigarettes. And since they die younger, just look how much someone getting near 100 of years, how much that cost.

+ should car owners also pay more? since they make the air unhealthy.
If you live 50m from a highway, you are in high risk of getting heart deceases etc.

People with cars that hava risky history do pay more. People who have bad driving records pay more... and yet we want people with proven bad habits to pay the same for health insurance.

That being said , it's aslippery slope. First you have to prove they smoke.
Then they'll want to tax people who eat X amount of fat. But fat isn't bad for you, the medical establishment just thinks it is based on study back in the 50's that was a fraud (Ancel Keys 7 countries study... that really has 22 countries until he excluded the ones that didn't support his Hypotheses)!

So in a word, no. Impossible to enforce. And then the government or insurance companies will be deciding what's best for us...

1St off. I disagree with any sin tax. It is the govenrment trampling on our freedom to what we want with our bodies. Their reason for this whole smoking thing is big government's belief that they know what's best for us. Funny, you don't see them going after medicinal marijuana! Smoking tobacco is bad, but smoking pot is admissable. It just shows the hypocracy of the liberals. But I digress...People who have insurance and smoke are charged higher rates for insurance. Those who do not have insurance (the ones that taxpayers end up subsidizing when they go to the hospital anyway) will have to buy it, and if they smoke, the insurance agencies by law will have to provide it for them albeit at a price they can't afford. If they can't afford it, guess who subsidizes it? The US taxpayer. Its one big group of people standing in a circle performing quick, twitchy arm motions if you get my drift.
Tax, tax, tax - big government's solution to every crisis they create themselves through poor budget management skills. In Illinois there is a $3 flat tax on any bottle of spirits in addition to the normal tax. Why? Boy I'd sure like a good explanaiton for that one! Also, the Illinois state government just passed a $3/patron tax on strip clubs to compensate for budget cuts in programs aiding sexual assault victims - even though there is no correlation! Historically, the only recession-proof industry has been the adult industry and big government has found a way to tax it now.

Been smoking for 35+ years, rarely been to the doctor... I may go to a doctor 1 or 2 times in a three year period, never been diagnosed with a smoking related illness; and hope I never do, but they keep saying it will happen. I bet if I quit smoking, I would have all kinds of problem? Here is why…

I inhaled some bad stuff a few years ago, (bacteria of some sort) that got into my lungs, Doctor said if I was a non-smoker it would have killed me, He said there was a chemical in the cigarettes that kept the bacteria suppressed. The bacteria will always be in my lungs (dormant from what I told by the doctors), because all they could do with their drugs was kill the active bacteria. I believe I will keep smoking; it’s a slower death sentence.

I will say this, If you never smoked, don’t start… smoking does have its drawbacks, one of which is: nowadays it costs allot more, which is a tax rip-off on smokers, the other is that it really does affect your health, even if you don’t notice after a year or two.

Originally posted by TiredofControlFreaks

And I ask you again - have you confronted others about burning other organic material in the presence of children or is your self-rightous ire reserved solely for smokers?

Tired of Control Freaks

If anyone ever in my presence puts a child and them-self into a glass box and burns incense, weed, tobacco, dragonsblood, opium, or peat I will most certainly ask them why they believe this is acceptable behavior. And depending on the child's reaction, I may have a stronger reaction myself. It seems like one thing you choose to disregard is the feelings of children, at least in this one case.

reply to post by jeantherapy


Does your anger towards smokers extend to families who burn wood in stoves and fire places in the winter? I have a fireplace that I use all winter long. I normally keep my windows and doors shut during this time.

Smokers already pay more taxes, that is established.

Um... I think women should have to pay more too.

The risk that they get pregnant and need prenatal healthcare, hospital bills for delivery, is pretty high- whereas with men it is 0% ?

In fact, the product of that choice to reproduce will be indirectly responsible for all the healthcare their offspring will then require, throughout their lives!

Women should be paying much more into it, considering they are the source of all humans, right?
Wait....I dunno....