>>>However...insurance costs - which we all pay - are based on the "stupidity" (more like deliberate disdain for others) of people who do unhealthy things to others. When people cause harm to others such as smoking or drinking to excess - then somehow there must be a way to assess them higher costs. Maybe by penalizing them with higher premiums they will stop damaging their children's health and insurance costs for the rest of us will go down!
I've got a better idea. If picking up assumed costs of bad behaviors is the issue....let's go after the REAL leeches.
The politicians that like to keep urban blytes to maintain a corrupt voting base and suck federal and state funds!
See, if real issues of costs are fixed, then we don't have to argue over imaginery straw mean for a few pennies.
Oh I have no quarrel about lambasting politicians who exploit human blight whether urban or rural. But they keep getting re-elected so unless you have a better idea - there they are and there they will stay...human nature being what it is. Class envy is a frightful barrier to human progress.
Back to smoking and kids. The smoke from burning tobacco harms kids who really have no say in what adults do around them. I disapprove of govt nannies getting involved in this conundrum without the overwhelming approval of the citizenry. For the time being, I do approve of insurance companies /landlords/employers/restauranteurs/etc discrinating against them if that will help.
That said, at some point society as a whole has to determine if the health and social costs of legal tobacco use are so harmful that it should be made illegal. Human beings after all haven't always smoked tobacco...they could get along fine without it - they should be able to get along without it again. For starters I would support a ban on smoking in films. Hollywood has done a lot of damage in that regard.
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See, if real issues of costs are fixed, then we don't have to argue over imaginery straw mean for a few pennies.
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I'm not sure what is imaginary here. Could you clarify..