Sigh. Tell that to all the folks in my waiting room....
This COST business has been blown so far out of proportion it's time for an oil change, Dr. Luv.
The BIG LIE That Smoking is an Economic Burden To Society
The Congressional Research Service, in the 1998 revision of their study found: Smokers cost the federal government $9 billion in medical care and $10 billion in lost contributions to social security, etc. But they also found they save $40 billion in retirement costs (mostly social security), about $8 billion in nursing home costs (mostly from Medicaid), and they collect $5.6 billion in cigarette taxes. When added up, smokers saved the federal government $34.6 billion dollars yearly.
State governments saved money too. After subtracting net medical costs of $1.5 billion and $1.8 billion from lost contributions from a savings of $4.8 billion in nursing home costs financed through Medicaid and $.6 billion in retirement savings, and $7.6 billion in cigarette taxes, smokers saved the states almost $9.7 billion.
That's a total saving of $44.3 billion.
Since this 1998 report, taxes have skyrocketed on cigarettes in many states and the tobacco settlement was signed. The settlement was for reimbursement of past and future medical expenses, so states have not only been reimbursed, but smokers are paid up to infinity on future medical costs.
Leaving out new taxes and the settlement, smokers have been overpaying the state and federal governments for an average $950 each year I figure. But to be fair, there are about the same number as former smokers as smokers so if there is ever a rebate given, it should be split up between the two groups and average about $475 each, each year.
Now, the state insurance program may feel the effects of smoker’s costs, but either it should be taken out of the excise tax or figured into the tobacco settlement, which supposedly covers it.
Not only that! We HAVE our own health coverage, thank you! No one, not even you, have to pay for US should we ever get sick! And that's a fact.
Tell them to roll their own. It is much less costly.
Sigh. Tell that to all the folks in my waiting room....
OK, let's see. Now what was it Ann Coulter said about liberals making arguments?
Oh, yes. I remember.
It seems, doc, like you are using some flimsy anecdotal evidence to address a reasonably well-researched proposition.
Unless all that follows your "sigh" (who let Al Gore in here?) is just liberalspeak for "What an idiot you are!"
In that case you are using ridicule to dismiss any discussion of the proposition.
BTW, Ann Coulter said that you can't have an intelligent discussion with a liberal because all they want to do is to ridicule or insult the other side.
And yes, I am using ridicule to counter your ridicule.
Again I will ask, are all your clients smokers. ?
Dr. Luv, I've had this discussion with friends who are also doctors, one a cardiologist and one a pulmonologist (I see my doctor every week--at the club, but haven't stepped foot in a doctor's office for thirty years). I don't doubt that most of your patients either smoke or have smoked, since a majority of older Americans grew up in a smoking culture, but that does not translate to most smokers get cancer or heart disease or emphysema or any of the other "smoking-related" illnesses. What you seem to overlook is that there is no reason for healthy smokers to ever see you or for you to ever see them.
Was a time when doctors were revered and respected; now they're more often considered arrogant and overbearing. Your comments here are one reason that's true.
Would that be the free hospital waiting room? I smoke, it won't cost you one precious dime. My guess is, your paranoid, "societal costs argument" goes out the window when we look at your prodigious child making habits.
I could give you anecdotal stories all night but that doesn't make it a scientific study.
So Dr. Luv. . .Tell me something. . . he quotes all these things about arsenic and other chemicals -- but in reality isn't there a difference between consuming these things and letting the body digest and purge them . . . as opposed to inhaling them where they sit in the lungs and, well turn them attractive shades of black?
I didn't really understand the blackness of a smoker's lungs until I went to the Body Worlds exhibit. www.bodyworlds.com
After seeing that, I can't imagine anyone putting a cigarette in their mouth.