OK, he died of a smoking-related illness and he was older than life expectancy. The stats say the average smoker dies 14 years younger than the average non-smoker, if the CDC is right. Say life expectancy is 78 nowadays. Smokers therefore die on average at 64. So your smoker died 20 years later than expected. You've got to figure there's some luckless smoker out there who died 20 years earlier than 64, to keep the average at 64. So some poor soul out there died at 44 due to smoking. Of course, this is a bit silly, but it has to be true that some die earlier and some later than the average.
You've summed it up very well. How can anyone disagree?
If you want to live longer than quit smoking, eat right, exercise and don't drink like a fish just because you saw one of those beer commercials on TV with women in skimpy bikinis telling you it's cool. (That will be a thing of the past BTW if the social engineering experiment continues on it's current pace)
Fast food ads from McDonalds and Burger King will seem unusual in 30 years. Just like tobacco company commercials on TV seem anachronistic today.
How else are liberals going to prevent their Universal Healthcare plan from going broke?