$13.50 per pack is tantamount to financial rape.
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Not as much of a rape as the costs of medical bills and income lost from smoking-caused disease. People do have a right to smoke if they want, but they have no right to complain if the rest of us want them to bear the costs of their habit.
Being obese injures more kills more, and costs more. Gonna charge fat people 1300 per month for health care?
Private medicine. Pay out of pocket. everyone.
No more Medicare, which was the start of this mess.
Then everyone will be out of everyone’s business, people can have as many kids as they want without being told not to have more kids.
No one will be pressured to not smoke due to others paying for their medical care.
But people ewould stop smoking - which started after third party payer came in.
And people will watch what they eat and do, which they did before third party payer came in.
And By the way, it has been shown that people who smoke die long before the burden for medical care comes into factor - generally speaking
Smokers already bear the “cost”. It’s called over taxation to pay for your schools, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc. Smoking only became the health threat it is today because the government did NOTHING to stop the genetic and artificial chemical alteration of tobacco as we know it today in the early 1900’s. Prior to that, tobacco’s “threat” was negligible. Few people know the true history of tobacco and those who profit by it; like you, your government, and big tobacco. The blame lies with everyone involved, not solely on the evil smokers, who are largely the victims of society’s greed.