How is encouraging people to stop smoking by raising taxes supposed to raise money for health care?
Lets think this through. Raising taxes is supposed to do two things:
1) Get people to stop smoking.
2) Raise money for health care.
If #1 is successful, what happens to the health care funding?
Remember the funding often goes to unrelated issues like child health care, not always to smoke prevention.
January 23rd, 2011 at 3:59 pm
Obama will definitely pay his share of taxes. He loves them Newports.
January 23rd, 2011 at 4:06 pm
Indirect savings from less people dying of tobacco-related complications, therefore lower health care costs overall.
January 23rd, 2011 at 4:10 pm
1 won’t be successful. It’s just the excuse so that they can get #2.
January 23rd, 2011 at 4:34 pm
Human nature they know the majority of people will not quit. How many times I heard when they went to $4 a pack I’m quitting. Didn’t happen including myself.
January 23rd, 2011 at 4:35 pm
No, it is suppose to
get people to stop smoking
reduce the cost of health care
this is the logic (agree or not, i really don’t care and I am a smoker)
the majority of health cost are due to smoking, so if you stop people from smoking, you reduce health care cost. but….
you also reduce the need for tobacco (the number one cash crop for Kentucky, and the second cash crop for North Carolina).
reduce the number of factory workers at plants that package cigarettes (they have a big plant in Greensboro,NC employs about 2,000 people.
I think the tax money will end up funding something stupid, like the money that states got from the tobacco lawsuit, it was used as normal state funds and not for health care.
January 23rd, 2011 at 4:57 pm
It’s mission creep. If they are successful, then here comes the excuse to raise other taxes.
But, they won’t be. Smokers actually save money in health care costs. How? By dying sooner! End-of-life medical expences are pretty much the same, on average. Lung cancer kills fast. Diabetes, Alzheimers, other cancers, heart failure, etc. can kill very slow, racking up huge bills, all the while one is still on social security & in assisted care facilities. The sooner you die after you are no longer a taxpayer, then the less of a burden you are. That sounds harsh, and it’s not a happy thought, but it is irrefutably true.
Bottom line; they just want to confiscate more of our cash, from every source possible. Any excuse will do.
January 23rd, 2011 at 5:48 pm
I am not sure, but if cigarettes get anymore expensive they had better sell them out of a guarded vault or a bank with armed guards! NY has $100 cartons now! $10 a pack! Lookout……crime is fixing to take a hike!