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To: Don'tMessWithTexas; Just another Joe
Should non-smokers, tee-totalers, and faithful monogamous heterosexuals have to pay higher premiums to cover the heath care costs of skmokers, drunks and homosexual prostitutes?

Why not??? The smokers can't carry the burden for EVERYthing! It is time for the rest of you to start carrying YOUR share.

215 posted on 05/12/2004 3:41:26 AM PDT by SheLion (Please register to vote! We can't afford to be silent.)
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To: SheLion
I do require very much from the healthcare system or the government. Therefore, I should not be expected to pick up a greater share. We educate our own children. Er should not be expected to pick up the cost of educating your children. If someone requires less service from the healthcare system or the government, they should not have to pick up the cost of providing service to those that do.

Somehow you are thinking that increased taxes on your cigs covers the increased burden on the government. I am not persuaded that it does. I believe increased taxes were merely adopted to fund a greedy nanny state. I am certainly not delighted that smokers pay higher taxes any more than someone who buys a bottle of wine or a gallon of gas. All are confiscatory.

A person who owns a hog confinement should not be able to move into a county and spew out lots of noxious odor on his neighbors. Admittedly, the odor is an externality of his operation that has little recoverable value. However, he ought to internalize that externality. Doing otherwise, is to force his neighbors to deal with that externality, lowering the expectations they had for their property.

Increasing taxes on the hog confinement owner does not necessarily result in the internalization of that externality unless it motivates the operator to move to another county.

Unless and until the confinement operator changes his behavior so that the odor is confined to his property, he has shifted a portion of the cost of his operation on to his neighbors. That is immoral. It's called stealing.

I understand that smokers pay alot in tobacco taxes. But that does not mean that they necessarily pay for the costs associated with their behavior. Only if we return to a system whereby smokers and non-smokers actually pay for their health care directly, can we truly have a situation where we are actually forced to pay our fair share.

247 posted on 05/12/2004 7:04:51 AM PDT by Don'tMessWithTexas
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