Should Smokers Pay Extra Taxes For Universal Healthcare?

reply to post by ModernAcademia


Should we make people who drive cars pay more?
Cars kill just as easily and car accidents are as much of a burden.
Excessive speeds that kill....drunk driving??

Should we make construction workers pay more because they work in dangerous conditions?
Should we make plumbers too because they deal with poo and have a higher risk of hepatitus?

Seriously??
A burden on healthcare is the same way any way you want to spin it and we all should help our fellow man to be free regardless of the choices they make.
You should never tell anyone what they should be doing.

Usually the word should turns me off....just like it is now.


Btw do you drive?
How would you feel for me upping your insurance cost on your house or car for...insert reason here.

Smokers already pay extra taxes on the products they smoke. Just like drinkers do on alcohol, fatties do on food and drivers do on fuel.

I am sure there are many key factors to this argument and I would rather not get the headache thinking of them. My comment will be our health care system up here in Canada covers everyone, healthy, sickly and those at risk of getting sick, including those who smoke and I am just fine with paying my taxes for that.

Sure there are some people who will abuse the system, there always will be, but the majority have a genuine need.

Originally posted by tothetenthpower
As long as the following groups also pay more:

The Elderly.
The Obese.
The Perpetually Sick ( as in, disease you can't get rid of)

SEe what a slippery slope that one is?

~Tenth

Absolutely not
Smokers chose to smoke
the elderly do not chose to be elderly
Not every obese choses to be obese
And same thing can sometimes go for the 3rd

The whole point of the thread was people who CHOSE to smoke

Choice is the main topic of the thread

As a side note, some of you are talking about the taxes placed on tobacco sales, much like fast foods and other things mentioned.

These can't be used as a legitimate argument, cause those taxes don't go to pay healthcare costs. At leat not in America they don't, and not in my country if I am not mistaken.

So yes, that's a good point, if that money is being used to fund heathcare.

Originally posted by Plugin
+ 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.

The analogies are insane

This is a transportation driven economy
Proof of that is oil prices go up many other things do too
Everything from food to clothing requires transportation

Does that answer your question?

Also not everyone lives near a subway so many people have to drive

No, people who eat garbage and don't exercise regularly should.

I smoke 2 packs a day, And I guarantee you that I am healthier and more physically fit than 99% of the American population.

Originally posted by AfterInfinity
Be careful what can you're opening there, friend. There's a lot more questions and controversy where that came from.

Not really because too many analogies from posters are irrelevant

reply to post by ModernAcademia


Fat people choose to eat. Mostly. I'm not saying there aren't any legit reasons to be 300 pounds, but mostly there isn't. These people CHOSE this path out of apathy for their current state.

I should not have to pay for the triple bypass surgery when they go into cardiac arrest.

Smokers are addicted to a substance that for many many decades, they were lied to regarding the effects. Nicotine addiction has been shown to be worse than methamphetamines or heroin to get over.

It's one of the most addictive, brain chemical changing things on the market. And although I was a smoker and occasionally sometimes still am, it doesn't fall on smokers to pay more for healthcare.

Considering also that smokers represent a VERY small portion of the overall population of the US and other 1st world nations. Smoking is in decline.

So your argument makes no sense, because #1 the ammount of smokers is constantly in decline, making their overall effect on the heatlhcare bill nationally hardly enough to get up in arms about.

~Tenth

Originally posted by watchitburn
I smoke 2 packs a day, And I guarantee you that I am healthier and more physically fit than 99% of the American population.

Please explain what fitness has to do with lung cancer?

You may appear healthy and fit on the outside, doesn't mean you are fit on the inside

Originally posted by headorheart
reply to post by DarknStormy

 

American doesn't have it yet, but many other countries do ...

and "many of those other(european) countries are defaulting or on the verge of defaulting on their sovereign debts too.

Originally posted by tothetenthpower
Fat people choose to eat. Mostly. I'm not saying there aren't any legit reasons to be 300 pounds, but mostly there isn't. These people CHOSE this path out of apathy for their current state.

Obesity and being fat are two different things
Obesity can be hereditary

So again the issue is choice

reply to post by ModernAcademia

too many analogies from posters are irrelevant

What does that make you??
Are you not a poster as well??
I am not sure if you are trolling or serious??

Originally posted by tothetenthpower
These can't be used as a legitimate argument, cause those taxes don't go to pay healthcare costs. At leat not in America they don't, and not in my country if I am not mistaken.

If my assumption that you are Canadian is correct, then yes, the tax on cigarettes goes to covering healthcare costs.

Anything that goes into general revenues goes towards healthcare, which comes from general revenues.

Originally posted by ModernAcademia

Originally posted by tothetenthpower
As long as the following groups also pay more:

The Elderly.
The Obese.
The Perpetually Sick ( as in, disease you can't get rid of)

SEe what a slippery slope that one is?

~Tenth

Absolutely not
Smokers chose to smoke
the elderly do not chose to be elderly
Not every obese choses to be obese
And same thing can sometimes go for the 3rd

The whole point of the thread was people who CHOSE to smoke

Choice is the main topic of the thread

Sandra Fluke chooses to have sex after her $160,000year job and wants us to pay for her contraception also.

Only if they outlaw cigarettes first.
Charging people more, just because they are doing something that IS legal and which the government financially profits from, is immoral.

reply to post by ModernAcademia


No they aren't.

Woah Meow:

FAT:
Adjective: (of a person or animal) Having a large amount of excess flesh.

o·bese/ōˈbēs/Adjective: Grossly fat or overweight.

Let's not have an argument about language. Being overweight is being overweight, there's no category difference other than medically caused vs ' can't put down the fork'.

MOST obese folk, are OBESE because they CHOSE to not be fit.

Same thing.

They should pay more taxes according to your logic.

If you want to argue otherwise, please link me the several studies that stated that the majority of Americans are overweight because of hereditary issues.

~Tenth

I just recently quit after smoking close to 35 years and man this thread just makes me want to smoke.

I agree with other posters in saying pushing some subsets into paying more taxes is a slippery slope. Universal Health Care is really the only way to solve this or ban hospitals altogether and let people just "get it from the rough".

Universal means NO. You would like to play favorites. I'm sure panels would love this too, just like ensurance companies love to.

No! Just like real countries with medicare, which is most of the free world. Universal Coverage! Equality! In fact health care should not have premiums!

reply to post by ModernAcademia


Here in the UK if you need major treatment (that isn't an emergency) and are a smoker usually they won't administer any operations or some treatments unless you can prove your quitting.

In answer to your question though, no I don't think smokers should pay more toward healthcare. Its not the way it works, by that logic those who don't pay in for whatever reason would be refused healthcare. Universal is the key word in your OP.