Smoking and health care!

[cowman]

I don't smoke or chew, but I don't go around condemning those who do! What bothers me is our hypocritical government saying how evil this all is...when they are raking off about 80% of the price of a pack of smokes!! Oh, but they are taxing tobacco for our own good!...right!!!
Then they have the nerve to say they have to tax these products, because health care is in big trouble because of smoking? This has been proven time and time again to be a bunch of garbage...People who smoke usually die younger thus relieving the health care system of lengthy care in old age! This isn't debatable but a fact, yet the governments trot out this old garbage again and again!
So don't feed us a bunch of crap Ralph...just admit you need some more money because you screwed up when you bought the last election!

[rodbradshaw]

Hi Cowman
You are right that smokers die younger and so don't tax the health care system in their old age but drive by a hospital some day and see how many young smokers are standing out side plying their habit. They use it when they are so called "young".
Our whole society needs to take a serious look at the value of the dollar we spend on health care and education. In Alberta in 93-94 when Ralph made the cuts, if he had not cut everything across the board he would have had to eliminate everything but health care and education. We spend far to much as a society on these two institutions. If your vet bill % was as high as our health care % is, you would certainly take a look at the advice your vet was giving you. We can not eliminate these institutions as these are definitely part of the foundation of our society. But if we can't make them efficient and cost effective then maybe smokers and the rest of us are going to have to pay more.
Rod

[countryguy]

Rod,do you not feel that smokers pay their own medicare bill with all the tax dollars they have contributed by smoking all their lives?The tax on one pack of cigs has to be 6 dollars per pack so a person smoking a pack a day does pay alot over the course of their life.If the gov't was real concerned about the whole thing they would simply outright ban smoking,but they never will.As we are aware the population of Canada is aging and cigarettes equates to the gov't as population control.In other words the more people smoking the less people on the medicare system,less old age pension to pay,less personal care centers.etc. etc. etc.,all at very little cost to the gov't!

Now that I look at all this I see stupid people are paying big dollars to slowly kill themselves.I think I will quit smoking so I can be a thorn in the gov'ts side WELL into the future!!! :-)

[cowman]

Countryguy: I think you are pretty close to right but isn't that one hell of a way for a govt. to act? If they were serious about getting people off tobacco why don't they help them out with programs to help them quit instead of goofy pictures on cigarette packages? And why don't they have pictures of rotten livers on a bottle of whiskey?
And Rod you are sure right about health care and education getting out of hand. I don't know why Ralph has turned into such a little spendthrift all of a sudden...although he's making sounds like he's getting tough with the teachers. Maybe getting sober helped!

[rodbradshaw]

Countryguy
In the old days smokers probably paid more than their fare share of health costs, but with sky rocketing costs in todays health care system you are probably in just as much a deficit positions as the rest of us with different lifestyles (overweight and underexcercised).
The other side is that the tobacco industry is very lucrative for the government (both taxes and political contributions), so why not keep milking the cow. Just pay lip service by putting scarey pictures on the pack and jack up the cost.
If the government was serious about helping people to live a healthier lifestyle, they would stopkids from starting. This would be the beginning of the end as the new supply of customers would not be their. As long as this highly addicitive substance is allowed to enslave new users we are going to have to pay the cost down the road for health care.
Countryguy, you might have something there about quitting and becoming a thorn in governments side into old age, but I have lots of friends and family who tried to quit, but most unfortunately are not successful because of the habit forming nature of this product.
Rod