Speakeasy forum: Smokers targeted again

Care System if you think that early deaths offset those costs, or that the savings from Social Security offset those costs.

My mother-in-law suffered from smoking-related heart disease from the age of 60. She made it to 83, and bankrupted the family. The last 8 years were on continuous oxygen. She was in and out of hospitals several times a year, every year from about 66 on.

And that doesn't even touch on the costs of cancer treatments.

Fact-free again, eh, Toni?

Rob

Yes, cancer has a million environmental causes, one of which is smoking. However smoking provides an unusually concentrated and escalating intake of carcinogens for people 16 or more hours a day.

Another friend had cysts in her breasts drained. Content? Coffee and cigarette by products.

Cancer is not all one thing, it is a constellation of diseases, often with similar causes. A slow growing cancer cell from one area may detach and be carried to another where it is far more invasive, which is generally the cause of most brain tumours which do not develop in childhood or early adulthood. People die of secondary cancers where the primary site cannot be found until autopsy, and which primary is often ridiculously small because the body has successfully fought it and encapsulated it. And don't neglect second hand smoke.

I put my father's death down to pipe smoking, and his cancer was of the Bowel. Same with my mother, and the same cancer location.

We all have relatives or know somebody who has been caught by addiction. My brother in law (I have 5) was the Golden Boy, quarterback of the high-school football team, lead trumpet in the orchestra, sociable, clever, an auxilliary diver for the Police Department when still in high school, a journalist and ultimately editor at an impossibly young age who married the Publisher's daughter. They went off to Europe for a year, and he came back a totally addicted marijuana smoker who then progressed through various other substances to meth and crack. He's now in full time Nursing Home care, because he went completely bonkers. It was a tragedy to watch happen.

There are generally underlying psychological, familial, or social problems which push people that far. I also know other people including another brother-in-law (who should be the one with all the problems, but isn't) who are occasional smokers of "herb" to use Bob Marley's term, for whom it is nothing but a mildly enjoyable intoxicant.

Me?? I'm an asthmatic. Two minutes of second-hand smoke and I have my inhaler out as I'm either leaving, or seeking refuge in an uncontaminated, or less contaminated room for the duration of the consumption.

Rob

We have liberals with plenty of good advice about how smokers need to stop smoking, with reasons such as it's for your own good, and that way smokers can avoid the penalty/fine, and yet the liberals STILL won't commit one way or the other on whether they believe the federal government has the right to specifically target a group with a fine/penalty and ignore other groups that also have chosen risky behavior which cause health claims to increase.

Come on, people......bring on your justifications as to why you believe it is ok....and make sure you explain why you think those other risky groups should not ALSO be fined/penalized.

that have known risk factors shouldn't affect one's premiums. I could excuse known genetic causes. If we're going to have a mandatory universal health system, I can't think of a reason why some sort of mandatory preventive care and regular testing shouldn't be implemented to go along with it. Those whose bad habits are known to come from personal choice rather than genetics would either pay more or be refused covered treatment. This would include abused drugs. If you've got traces of illegal substances or higher amounts of legal substances than would be prescribed, you are subject to a fine.

While I'd not want to see this happen, I don't want to see a health care system that's open to abuse. It can't be an umbrella to protect people from themselves.

It shouldn't be a specific group but generic in nature. I feel strongly about taking personal responsibility and being willing to pay the price for doing what is known to be risky.