What a crock of chit!

WEST VIRGINIA SMOKERS' CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE STATE ECONOMY - 2001

Smokers are not a financial burden as been implied: Smoking-related healthcare costs are a pittance to overall healthcare costs (8% in my state of Maine). If every smoker quit, healthcare costs would go down only temporarily and then rise above the amount they are complaining about now, because nonsmokers get sick too and for more years.

Smokers more than make up for their extra cost by dying (their choice-not theirs) sooner; collecting less social security and pensions, and less time in nursing homes. The state tax on cigarettes is all gravy. This is all backed up by facts.

"When you buy a pack of cigarettes, you pay the price of the cigarettes. You also assume some implicit costs that you know about if you are aware of the health effects of smoking. But there might be another part of the cost that you don't pay, the cost that smokers impose on other people. That is the kind of cost that we were trying to examine. When we looked at the study done by health economist Ray Manning and several associates (funded by the RAND Corporation) we found that the spillover effect per pack of cigarettes was 33 cents. At the time (1994), the sum of federal, state, and local cigarette taxes was about 50 cents per pack. So the cigarette tax was already higher than the spillover cost."--Jane Gravelle, economist, Congressional Research Service.

"The lifetime health cost for a smoking man is $72,700 and $94,700 for a smoking woman. For nonsmokers, the cost is $83,400 for a man; $111,000 for a woman.

"If people stopped smoking today, there would be a savings in health care costs, but only in the short term. Eventually, smoking cessation would lead to increased health care costs." --New England Journal of Medicine,1997;337:1052-7.

Ping

 

Hi!

You're up late, too?

Naturally, I think it's only reasonable that the insurance companies get to charge according to the risk they are taking. Otherwise, the nonrisk taking buyers of insurance would have to pay more and subsidize risky behavior, rather like the theory of socialism.

Now you can argue reasonably that smoking is not a sin, but it ain't a walk in the park either.

I wonder if they charge extra to fatties?

I wonder if they charge extra if you don't have your high blood pressure or high cholesterol controlled by drugs?

I wonder if they charge more to gay people?

All those things are life-style choices....just like smoking.

"The lifetime health cost for a smoking man is $72,700 and $94,700 for a smoking woman. For nonsmokers, the cost is $83,400 for a man; $111,000 for a woman.

And you believe this?

First, you have to consider that premiums are based on yearly costs, and nonsmokers live longer, thus the per annum cost is actually higher for smokers.

Most important, smokers are now demanding very high ticket surgeries to save their lives, like lung reduction surgery, which my mother-in-law just had for her smoking induced emphysema, and soaked the younger working gen X'ers to the tune of over hundred thousand dollars.

It's not working as well as she'd hoped, so now she wants a lung transplant. NO FOOLING!

Gosh, I wonder what the percentage of smokers that have COPD is? BTW, that's a disease determined by genetics. Many non-smoking folks get COPD.

I think they should just raise the rates on people who have bad genes, personally.

What frosts me is that if you smoke ONE CIGAR every two years, you are considered "a smoker". This, with the blessing of the government, of course. They know what's best for us.

Isn't this awful. And did you see what the smokers are paying into the STATE? And they do this to them. This is criminal. I wish someone would sue.

COPD is? BTW, that's a disease determined by genetics.

Really. Funny, all the patients I treated who had COPD had either been smokers or asthmatics, mostly smokers.

Is the gene you're referring to one that determines whether one cannot make rational choices in the face of facts?

I think they should just raise the rates on people who have bad genes, personally.

Yes, we sure have a lot of people in here lately from the wrong end of the Gene Pool. LOL!

You want the government out of your lives, but you want nonsmokers to subsidize your risk taking behavior, just like socialists.

Nope. You need to do some google.com looking at the genetic link to COPD. It's been well known for over 20 years.

Smoking-related healthcare costs are a pittance to overall healthcare costs (8% in my state of Maine). If every smoker quit, healthcare costs would go down only temporarily and then rise above the amount they are complaining about now, because nonsmokers get sick too and for more years.

I'm not here to start an argument, but where are you getting this data?

For the record, smoking probably saved my life. When my LAD was 90% occluded last year, the vasoconstricting properties of smoking brought on chest pains before it became 100% occluded and caused what might have been a mortal heart attack. The docs call it "The smoker's paradox". My medical bills in the last 12 months have exceeded $75,000. Smoking wasn't the root cause of my heart problems (but neither was it innocent). Genetic predisposition, stress, diabetes, nutrition, sedentary lifestyle, Type A personality -- they all had a hand in it.

I think it is only a matter of time before all people will pay insurance rates based on a variety of lifestyle and predisposing traits. Insurance companies are the masters of squeezing blood from turnips.

Well, you subsidize the medical care for gay men...you subsidize it for fatties, you subsidize it for druggies, you subsidize it for folks with high blood pressure and high cholesterol who don't bother to take their meds.

Whiner.

It's been well known for over 20 years.

Bull. You're probably reading American Tobacco Industry "research".

"The lifetime health cost for a smoking man is $72,700 and $94,700 for a smoking woman. For nonsmokers, the cost is $83,400 for a man; $111,000 for a woman.

And you believe this?

This is from the New England Journal of Medicine,1997;337:1052-7.

So, YOU don't believe it? hehe!

Wrong.

1997

You are five years out of date.

You can't handle the truth, can you? THERE IS A STRONG GENETIC COMPONENT TO COPD. Do the google.com search before you make a bigger fool of yourself.

What frosts me is that if you smoke ONE CIGAR every two years, you are considered "a smoker". This, with the blessing of the government, of course. They know what's best for us.

I don't care WHAT the government says about us anymore. I have been rolling our own cigarettes for over a year now. Instead of paying $44-$50 dollars a carton into the state coffers (since Maine raised the taxes again), I roll a carton for under $8.00!!!! And by NOT paying into the state coffers anymore sure makes my day. heh!