Cigarette Smoking saves health care dollars!

[Arrian]

So you will sign up to spend the last ~10 yrs dragging an oxygen tank around behind you?

-Arrian (recently quit)

[Datajack Franit]

Signed

[Dis]

chicks dig men with oxygen tanks.

[Richelieu]

Originally posted by Datajack Franit
Signed

********

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by The Mad Viking
I would be very, very surprised if the one year death cost of the 60 year-old were more than the 20 years of health cost for someone 60 to 80, plus the one-year death cost of whatever they die from.

I hadn't even considered the cost savings of lowered obesity in the equation.

So I'm pretty sure smoking saves money straight up.

The you have the huge bonus of tax revenues.

And as you reduce tobacco use, you have ongoing transitional costs for farmers and the tobacco industry workers moving to new lines of work.

It's idiotic to consider "tax revenues" and continued employment of tobacco farmers a benefit of smoking. Those are bad things; making them unemployed would free up labor that could be devoted to other tasks.

[Jon Miller]

If you are healthy, you can be active and doing things into your 80s.

JM
(a professor that I TAed for recently celebrated 50 years of being a professor)

[Spiffor]

Lung cancer, like any cancer, costs a bunch of money.

If you want to die young, just commit suicide. It's cleaner, cheaper, and much more pleasant

[Colonâ„¢]

But it can be such a bloody mess.

[Urban Ranger]

Re: Cigarette Smoking saves health care dollars!

Originally posted by The Mad Viking
Here's the logic.

Everybody dies.

Cigarrettes make you die SOONER.

The leading cause of health care expense is the elderly.

If the elderly all died of lung cancer or heart disease by age 70, it would seem to me likely that this would save a lot of money.

Probably not. Cigarettes make you die sooner, sure, but from nasty diseases and disorders. You know, disorders that cost an arm and a leg to treat, and they die an agonising death anyway.

Ick.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Colonâ„¢
But it can be such a bloody mess.

Self-poisoning ftw

[Provost Harrison]

Faster than wheelbarrows?

[VetLegion]

Mad Viking, you're not the first to ask this question. I've read some estimates somewhere, I think someone did a paper on the subject, but I can't remember what was the conclusion.

[Sikander]

Mad Viking is correct, and those who think otherwise are wrong. It saves a buttload of money, and not just health care dollars. Much more is saved by not having to pay government pensions etc. Remember that besides being the wealthiest age group, the elderly are also the most subsidized by the government. Talk about the rich getting richer!

[Kuciwalker]

He's correct that is saves money, but he's still an idiot. If we're going to do this, we might as well just shoot old people - that would save a lot more money.

[Playful]

So basically to save health care dollars, anyone that smokes shouldn't seek medical help for illness or diseases brought on by cigarette smoking.



What about the people that get illness or diseases from second hand smoke? Are they supposed to deny themself medical treatment too? We are talkin about saving health care dollars here!

This is the theme of your thread isn't it?

Lets make everyone suffer because of cigarette smoking. When I light up I'm risking my own health. But I certainly don't inflict the one's around me with the poisons.