posted on Jun, 14 2016 @ 10:47 AM
a reply to:
BO XIAN
(sorry for the late response...and hopefully it doesn't seem to ramble)
Non-smokers shouldn't have to pay for such an optional, selfish problem. Like I think I mentioned, I smoked for 12-13 years and started at age
15--quit cold turkey, without any cost to a non-smoker. I never had smoking-related health issues, so I wasn't a draw on my medical insurance pool,
either. It was just a stupid habit in which I got myself caught up and addicted, but had the good sense and self worth to let it go.
IMO, there isn't much "public interest" in cleaning up the results of smoking. Well, let me rephrase: I don't think that it is the responsibility of
the public to clean up anything that has to do with smoking, except for maybe the superficial things like the ungodly amount of cigarette butts that
smokers toss onto public streets on a daily basis. Other than that, smoking-related issues should rest solely on the shoulders of smokers.
Since we must live under a norm of pooled insurance groups, I wish smokers would all be grouped together, because they should shoulder the cost of the
health risks amongst themselves--again, because it's a optional, selfish choice to smoke and cause the cost of health insurance for others to increase
due to complications from the habit. Non-smokers should be their own group that at least removes the variable of smoking from the cost of health
insurance. I'd be really interested in seeing the difference in health-insurance costs if that were done--I bet it'd be pretty damn impressive.
But we won't do that as a society, because then we'd want those with Type-2 Diabetes in their own group, and drug users in their own group, and
adrenaline junkies in their own group, and so on. So, I guess we're stuck with the system that we have now, where we do share a limited monetary
liability to pay for such an optional, selfish problem, but that doesn't mean that our tax dollars must ALSO go toward the issue in such ridiculous
ways as forcing tobacco companies to try and scare off their own customers with pictures and warning labels. Like I said before, if the government
really wanted to stop smoking, they'd outlaw the addictive agent so that it was easier to quit...but they aren't going to do that, either.