Posted on 02/05/2006 3:53:28 PM PST by dware
Another lie. It is proven that taxes derived from the purchase of tobacco products, are invariably used for other purposes than the altruistic ones used as the excuse.
What would they do if everyone stopped smoking?
It's funny. I guarentee you that at least half of the senators who will vote for measures like this are obese. The machine they are building will certainly turn on them. Obesity is rapidly gaining ground on smoking for health care costs.
They're already trying that in Britain. Next will be Canada, then the dems will start mewling about it here. I believe in France, if you are 20% overweight you can't even get a mortgage.
Only partly true. The idea of insurance is to pool SIMILAR risks. It isn't to have low-risk people subsidize high-risk people.
As examples, fire insurance premiums vary with the riskiness of house construction, the nearness to a fire department/hydrant, etc.; auto insurance premiums vary with age and previous accident experience (mine went up when I had an accident); life insurance premiums go up if you already have a chronic disease at the time you apply (I got hit with that when I bought insurance for my first wife, after she was diagnosed with kidney problems).
It's entirely reasonable for insurance companies to demand higher premiums for people who belong in higher-risk pools. The idea that they may be denied insurance completely is simply a red herring. They may find the higher premiums unaffordable, but that's not the same as being told they're absolutely uninsurable.
I have been smoking for 37 years, and have yet to be treated for any smoking related illness. Am I just not inhaling deeply enough?
I hear you drive too fast, eat too much at lunch, DON'T have oatmeal for breakfast, and seem to like to have too much beer while sitting on your couch watching football hour after hour.
(In the voice of the Soup Nazi)
NO INSURANCE FOR YOU!
NEXT!
Ex-smoker here, but it seems to me before penalizing smokers the government ought to consider making tobacco a controlled substance. Oh, wait a minute, too much tax revenue and lobby money involved. I forgot for a moment and thought we might someday govern again on principle instead of principal.
ABSOLUTELY, give discounts to people who are monogamous, people who aren't heavy drinkers,people who drive the speed limit, discount people who exercise...wow, we could get some real cheap rates!! etc. Right now if a person is overweight the insurance rates go up? Why, because there is more proness to disease and health care. So, let it all go to FREE regulations, and let insurance companies drop rates for people who AREN'T COUCH POTATOES AND WORK.Especially quiers who are probably end up with AIDS.
and they CHOOSE to be gay.
I agree that smokers are being maligned everywhere, but remember that Medicaid and is a socialist program.
Why are health costs rising? No one wants to address that question left or right. They always talk about non solutions or making sure everyone has insurance which would mean that insurance companies and health care providers would never have to cut costs for patients. We would be much better off if everyone had to negotiate with the doctors themselves and we made insurance illegal.(Is it any different than a common pyramid scheme?)Like all good bureaucracies, corporate or government, those that run them all prefer a system where the participants don't have any real oversight on what goes on in the system. Are you going to tell the government no or just decide not to take your medicine? I don't think so.
The public has been taught to think in terms that serve the powerful and guarantee the powerful profits and greater control over their lives. Is it a wonder they continue to treat us the way they do. Attacks on Walmart are not just an attack in the name public good but in the name of trying to destroy a company that has been successful in keeping prices down and making tons of money while doing it. It is a consumer based model and it works. Most industries fear that and rightly so. The best thing that could happen is if Walmart got into the health care business.
While I'm not in the least upset about profits based upon a service or product exchanged in good faith on equal ground, I am upset when there appears to be a direct conspiracy to cheat the public out of the value of their hard earned dollars whether it is for medicine or public services or anything else. We are seeing more and more collusion at every level and the collusion is against the interests of the public. We can't trust our politicians and we can't trust those industries we rely on because they lie too in order to protect a status quo that is not just making them rich but keeping them filthy rich while the public receives the minimum in return for their dollars.
What to do? We need to demand more for our money and work together to provide other options. Allowing the government and industry to tell us what we'll have is what has got us into the mess we are in. We the people should have the last word and demand more but what do I hear? I hear excuses on the right for almost any vice committed in the name of capitalism and from the left it is excuses for any vice committed in the name of providing government services.
If they have insurance, I don't care. Same with smokers..
I thought medical care was what those billions of dollars the State got from the cigarette companies' settlement were supposed to pay for?
"Socialized medicine is a huge mistake, that few people understand."
Bingo! As far as I'm concerned Medicade/Medicare/Soc. Security are all unconstitutional programs that allow the gov't to control how people behave or else they won't get "their" gov't check.
And since the Gov't has put the availability of health insurance for people over 65 out of business or virtually unobtainable at any price ... they have set themselves up as the only game in town. This is called enslavement.
Would this legislator dare to make that same recommendation for practicing homosexuals or drug addicts who are at a high risk for AIDS?
2/3 of all smokers can smoke without risk. But the whole society must be forced to comply with the profile of the 1/3 who will get sick. Whatever happened to the smaller, less intrusive government idea?
"It isn't to have low-risk people subsidize high-risk people. "
That is EXACTLY what it's about. That's how premiums can be affordable. And quite often low-risk people end up with some illness which costs huge amount of $ to treat.
"They may find the higher premiums unaffordable, but that's not the same as being told they're absolutely uninsurable."
Yes, it is the same thing.
This is a start. Hopefully just the beginning of the end of so-called free health care.
And I posted an article about NY monitoring the blood sugars of ALL people in NY, who get a blood test to measure their blood sugar. The labs send it directly to the government -- this is for EVERYONE, not just for those on Medicaid.
The point is that first for those on Medicaid, then for everyone else. Next thing you know, you will get rations from the government for your breakfast, lunch and dinner and you will participate in government supervised exercise program, or you won't get medical care of even food. This sounds like an exaggeration -- but for the government to take over your healthcare is already going pretty far.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1572433/posts?page=11#11
I agree with the collusion argument. As long as docs are the higest paid profession and drug prices are unpublished we are being had. The fundamental fallacy is that poor people cannot afford servants, but government programs pretend that they can.
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