terratogen wrote:

n an overwhelming majority of 17 to 4, and in defiance of a threatened veto by President Bush, the US Senate Finance Committee approved a bill to expand child healthcare using a large increase in tobacco tax. Most of the Republicans on the Committee joined the Democrats to vote in favour of the bill.

I'm glad that Bush is going to veto this piece of crap. I'm of the opinion that ideally, your tax dollars should go toward something you would want to support. Smokers don't give a shit about your fucking kids. Smokers probably don't give a shit about you either... Hell, smokers don't even care about themselves.

I'm not necessarily saying that this bill is good, or necessarily that excise taxes are the way to fund schools, but I definitely take issue with the notion that individuals should only be taxed for those things that they want to pay for. The fact of the matter is that the majority of people don't want to pay for anything that benefits anyone else. The problem is that our system only works because the number of people paying is higher than the number of people taking advantage of the results.

This is decried as unfair, constantly. Unfortunately, the logical conclusion of the argument is everyone paying for their own education, health care, police services, fire services, and on and on, and in no way is that system either humane or sustainable.

In short, smokers can stop smoking if the price is too high. Education carries a societal benefit that far outweighs their right to pleasure themselves while polluting my air and destroying their lungs (oh, and raising my insurance premiums, which only further demonstrates the necessary interconnectedness of a society).

There's probably more people who smoke who are struggling financially than there are financially secure.

Then they've made a poor choice. A two-pack-a-day smoker probably spends upwards of $3000 a year on cigarettes. If you're making less than 30k, you shouldn't be spending 10+% of your income that way. Yes, yes, I'm elitist and smug, whatever.

k wrote:

I'm not necessarily saying that this bill is good, or necessarily that excise taxes are the way to fund schools, but I definitely take issue with the notion that individuals should only be taxed for those things that they want to pay for. The fact of the matter is that the majority of people don't want to pay for anything that benefits anyone else. The problem is that our system only works because the number of people paying is higher than the number of people taking advantage of the results.

This is targeting one set of victims to help one the government is deciding more valuable. I'd argue that smokers are more valuable. Sick kids have been flagged by darwin while smokers by their very survival defy darwin and are therefore more fit.

This is decried as unfair, constantly. Unfortunately, the logical conclusion of the argument is everyone paying for their own education, health care, police services, fire services, and on and on, and in no way is that system either humane or sustainable.

Education, health care, police services, fire services, and so on benefit EVERYONE. Healthcare only for kids only benefits cheap parents.

In short, smokers can stop smoking if the price is too high.

Price doesn't "help" an addiction. Many studies show that cigarette addiction is stronger than a heroin addiction (even though the withdrawl syptoms are much worse with heroin.)

Education carries a societal benefit that far outweighs their right to pleasure themselves while polluting my air and destroying their lungs (oh, and raising my insurance premiums, which only further demonstrates the necessary interconnectedness of a society).

Education is paid for with property tax. This is about the healthcare of children who's parents either don't want to pay for their kids health, or can't and probably represents a bad decision. Does price affect birthing rates? Education at least represents a common social good. Too many idiots running around makes for a poor democracy. Forcing others to be responsible for the health of your child has no benefit for society as a whole. If you can't care for your kid, give it up for adoption.

There's probably more people who smoke who are struggling financially than there are financially secure.

Then they've made a poor choice. A two-pack-a-day smoker probably spends upwards of $3000 a year on cigarettes. If you're making less than 30k, you shouldn't be spending 10+% of your income that way. Yes, yes, I'm elitist and smug, whatever.

Bullshit. Many of these smokers got started when cigarettes were less than 3 dollars a pack. "The first hit's free, but now you can take care of my kids!!!"??? I don't see that as worth it for the smokers who have problems of their own that the money should be used for.

terratogen wrote:
This is targeting one set of victims to help one the government is deciding more valuable. I'd argue that smokers are more valuable. Sick kids have been flagged by darwin while smokers by their very survival defy darwin and are therefore more fit.

Congratulations on achieving Swiftian levels of satire. I'm having trouble even begining to wrap my head around what you're trying to say. I'll limit to this sentence my treatment of the asinine assumption that a child stricken by disease should be sacrificed at the Hand of Darwinian Selection presumptively... I even agree that not every person can be or should be cured, but hardly to the extent any serious aggreement with your statement would imlpy. Beyond that, the assumption that health care for children is only beneficial to kids with cancer or spinal meningitis or whatever is clearly incorrect. Preventative medecine has a high value and furthermore a demonstrable cost savings over later treatment of disease. In other words, even an emotionless economic analysis would show childhood health care to be valuable. I'm not even going to bother with the notion that smokers prove their evolutionary fitness... again, unless the statement was satire, in which case I retract this entire paragraph, I see no logic whatsoever in that attitude.

As for smokers as victims, I'll get to that in a moment.

This is about the healthcare of children who's parents either don't want to pay for their kids health, or can't and probably represents a bad decision.

I mistook the initial article and said Education. My opinion stands.

Bullshit. Many of these smokers got started when cigarettes were less than 3 dollars a pack. "The first hit's free, but now you can take care of my kids!!!"??? I don't see that as worth it for the smokers who have problems of their own that that money should be used for.

I couldn't give a fuck how much they cost way back when. As if the fact that we *didn't* tax them to hell in 1980 means we can't now. Even at $3/pack that's $2200 a year for 2 packs/day. And that's assuming there hasn't been inflation since whenever cigarettes were $3 a pack.

Beyond which, I didn't push them on anyone. I'll even concede that the tobacco companies DID engage in some unsavory advertising practices and likewise understated the dangers of smoking for many years, an argument you haven't made yet, but perhaps will. Still, I didn't need all the modern advertising to know that that shit was noxious and unhealthy. I'm supposed to accept that smokers are poor, misled sods who never knew any better, and I'm taking advantage of them? Please. I know the things are fucking addictive, and I know that that's a public health issue... if anything, the tobacco tax should go towards preventing people from becoming smokers in the first place. Hm, I suppose a well designed child health care package might have that effect to some degree.

I'm sorry, I just can't dredge up an ocean of sympathy for smokers. It's not a neutral activity, but an objectively harmful one, and one which *CAN* be discontinued, albeit with difficulty for most people.

k wrote:

terratogen wrote:
This is targeting one set of victims to help one the government is deciding more valuable. I'd argue that smokers are more valuable. Sick kids have been flagged by darwin while smokers by their very survival defy darwin and are therefore more fit.

Congratulations on achieving Swiftian levels of satire. I'm having trouble even begining to wrap my head around what you're trying to say. I'll limit to this sentence my treatment of the asinine assumption that a child stricken by disease should be sacrificed at the Hand of Darwinian Selection presumptively... I even agree that not every person can be or should be cured, but hardly to the extent any serious aggreement with your statement would imlpy. Beyond that, the assumption that health care for children is only beneficial to kids with cancer or spinal meningitis or whatever is clearly incorrect. Preventative medecine has a high value and furthermore a demonstrable cost savings over later treatment of disease. In other words, even an emotionless economic analysis would show childhood health care to be valuable. I'm not even going to bother with the notion that smokers prove their evolutionary fitness... again, unless the statement was satire, in which case I retract this entire paragraph, I see no logic whatsoever in that attitude.

As for smokers as victims, I'll get to that in a moment.

Both ways are asinine here. Why should the taxes prefer one or the other? Wouldn't healthcare for smokers with smokers tax dollars be more sensible?

This is about the healthcare of children who's parents either don't want to pay for their kids health, or can't and probably represents a bad decision.

I mistook the initial article and said Education. My opinion stands.

How does healthcare for kids only benefit everyone?

Bullshit. Many of these smokers got started when cigarettes were less than 3 dollars a pack. "The first hit's free, but now you can take care of my kids!!!"??? I don't see that as worth it for the smokers who have problems of their own that that money should be used for.

I couldn't give a fuck how much they cost way back when. As if the fact that we *didn't* tax them to hell in 1980 means we can't now. Beyond which, I didn't push them on anyone. I'll even concede that the tobacco companies DID engage in some unsavory advertising practices and likewise understated the dangers of smoking for many years, an argument you haven't made yet, but perhaps will. Still, I didn't need all the modern advertising to know that that shit was noxious and unhealthy. I'm supposed to accept that smokers are poor, misled sods who never knew any better, and I'm taking advantage of them? Please. I know the things are fucking addictive, and I know that that's a public heal... [ Read More (0.3k in body) ]

terratogen wrote:
I don't have more sympathy for a sick kid than for someone with lung cancer.

And I do, because the one of the two got their lung cancer by conscious choice.

And as for your other comments, I agree that there's no philosophical difference between taxing cigarettes because they're unhealthy and taxing, say, junk food, because it's unhealthy. In general the right to abuse yourself only extends so far as it doesn't affect other people. Smoking (and obesity and alcoholism) have social impacts that do affect everyone. Therefore it's sensible to have those who are causing these negative effects pay a slightly higher share to offset them. In general, these issues should all be handled by the insurance system, because the premiums for a self abuser (of any sort) will be higher than for someone who treats themselves well. Unfortunately, the insurance system is all fucked up in this country, and a lot of people aren't paying into the system, thus reducing the pool of available funds, so we have to find that money elsewhere.

Are you anti insurance? It only works because a vast number of healthy people are paying for the small number of sick people. There isn't any other way it can work. So, am I, a generally healthy young person, being robbed by all the old sickies? It's a point of view I've heard. It's a cost I'm willing to pay however, because the system doesn't function otherwise. The alternative is everyone pays for their own health care directly, with no cost sharing. This of course means that people who've had some bad luck, die. Period. One may certainly argue in favor of such a system, so long as they don't shy away from the facts of how it works.

As I've said, I do think there's a difference between a 50 year old lifetime smoker with lung cancer, and a kid who needs annual checkups and can't get them because his mom works at Wal-mart. I'm not talking, in general, about kids with leukemia here... I'm talking about regular poor kids getting basic preventative care. I absolutely don't think a cigarette tax is the best way to make that happen, but in an imperfect world, I'm willing to take what I can get.

Of course it's moot since, as you indicated at the start of all this, Bush is going to veto it.

k wrote:

terratogen wrote:
I don't have more sympathy for a sick kid than for someone with lung cancer.

And I do, because the one of the two got their lung cancer by conscious choice.

The kid probably has more than one person to take care of him, while the smoker is on their own. If the kid jumps out of a tree and breaks his ankle, does this conscious choice mean the kid deserves less sympathy? Or should the fact that he was just a kid having fun warrant sympathy? You'd expect adults to know better, however in many ways people never outgrow recklessness. It's the smoker's buck afterall, that should be why those taxes should go to treat his health. Working parents can be taxed for their decision to have sickly, reckless children who are a burden to society.

And as for your other comments, I agree that there's no philosophical difference between taxing cigarettes because they're unhealthy and taxing, say, junk food, because it's unhealthy. In general the right to abuse yourself only extends so far as it doesn't affect other people. Smoking (and obesity and alcoholism) have social impacts that do affect everyone. Therefore it's sensible to have those who are causing these negative effects pay a slightly higher share to offset them. In general, these issues should all be handled by the insurance system, because the premiums for a self abuser (of any sort) will be higher than for someone who treats themselves well. Unfortunately, the insurance system is all fucked up in this country, and a lot of people aren't paying into the system, thus reducing the pool of available funds, so we have to find that money elsewhere.

If they have to pay more to offset their social harm, why should that go to pay for someone's fucking kid? This raised cost should correlate to the actual harm being done.
Having kids and not being able to cover the financial burden also affects other people, and in a myriad more important ways than smoking affects other people.

Are you anti insurance? It only works because a vast number of healthy people are paying for the small number of sick people. There isn't any other way it can work. So, am I, a generally healthy young person, being robbed by all the old sickies? It's a point of view I've heard. It's a cost I'm willing to pay however, because the system doesn't function otherwise. The alternative is everyone pays for their own health care directly, with no cost sharing. This of course means that people who've had some bad luck, die. Period. One may certainly argue in favor of such a system, so long as they don't shy away from the facts of how it works.

The cost of YOUR insurance or your children's insurance should probably not come from smokers. Smokers should pay more for it, and they should get what they pay for.

As I've said, I do thin... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

terratogen wrote:
Working parents can be taxed for their decision to have sickly, reckless children who are a burden to society.

Or, as you've indicated, working parents can be taxed for other people's decisions to have "sickly, reckless children." I've already indicated that this isn't about the special cases, but about basic preventative care, which you've chosen to ignore. I've also indicated that insurance only works because you can spread the cost. In other words, receiving the direct proportional benefit of your contribution is already not the way the system can work. So right now, I'm paying the cost for smokers' health care, and they're paying fuck all for my every-two-years physical. This is how the system works, and I'm fine with it. The fact that they may pay a trifle more *does not* offset the extra burden they cause. The fact that I and people like me are paying and not making use of the system *does*.

Feel free to come right out and say that you'd prefer everyone to pay for their own health care 100%. As I've said, you can have that opinion, as long as the consequences are understood and acceptable to you.

Having kids and not being able to cover the financial burden also affects other people, and in a myriad more important ways than smoking affects other people.

Oh, I agree, but I'm not about to throw those kids to the wolves to prove my point.

You mentioned the child tax credit at some point, and I think that's an interesting issue, and one I've thought a great deal about. For example, I've considered that perhaps the credit should halve for each child. That is, you have one, fine, full credit. Two, you get 1.5, three, 1.75, etc. I've considered this as a mechanism to add revenue, while theoretically diminishing the tax incentive to breed.

It's worth discussing. I'm currently on the fence since I think the people who most need to stop having kids are the least likely to know about and account for this change. They're already making poor choices and I doubt this would turn that around. On the other, for those (few) well-to-do folks that have lots of kids, the extra tax they pay might be able to help offset the burden caused by the reckless ones.

Is this unfair? Yes. Without somehow implementing strict regulations on breeding, which is something I seriously doubt would be a career making political stance, there's no way to fix the problem of people having kids and not taking care of them. Thus, money has to be found to do so. How that money gets apportioned (e.g. to run orphanages for kids we take away from stupid parents, health care, healthy food subsidy, etc) is certainly a valid discussion, but the need for that money is not subject to question I don't think. And where it comes from is going to be "unfair" to those paying. They can embrace the alternative, which is to let kids of reckless parents di... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

k wrote:

Or, as you've indicated, working parents can be taxed for other people's decisions to have "sickly, reckless children." I've already indicated that this isn't about the special cases, but about basic preventative care, which you've chosen to ignore. I've also indicated that insurance only works because you can spread the cost. In other words, receiving the direct proportional benefit of your contribution is already not the way the system can work. So right now, I'm paying the cost for smokers' health care, and they're paying fuck all for my every-two-years physical. This is how the system works, and I'm fine with it. The fact that they may pay a trifle more *does not* offset the extra burden they cause. The fact that I and people like me are paying and not making use of the system *does*.

Actually, insurance companies will charge smokers more (as well they should)if they are able to get coverage at all. I never said that the cost should be directly proportionate, but the cost sharing should at least correlate. If your insurance company raised YOUR insurance, but left the prices of smokers alone or made it cheaper than yours, it is no different than the way this tax is set up. It's not "Sharing" unless it's in some way reciprocal, and the smoker doesn't get anything out of this. Both the average cases and the special cases come down to a cost which is payed for by people who are not responsible and who are doing nothing illegal. The context of my example had to do with any health damage being a"conscious choice." Would this also mean that the healthcare soldiers get should really go to pay for kids instead because they volunteered to enlist? I don't think conscious choice is relevant.

Feel free to come right out and say that you'd prefer everyone to pay for their own health care 100%. As I've said, you can have that opinion, as long as the consequences are understood and acceptable to you.

I think cost sharing is definitely the way to go, but unless the kids submit something in the pool for smokers, there IS NO SHARING. It is theft. I'm not a smoker, but if I were smoking a cigarette and some parent saw me, could they demand to take my wallet because they want to get braces for their ugly kid?

Having kids and not being able to cover the financial burden also affects other people, and in a myriad more important ways than smoking affects other people.

Oh, I agree, but I'm not about to throw those kids to the wolves to prove my point.

Why does throwing them to their PARENTS and other parents mean that that is the wolves?

You mentioned the child tax credit at some point, and I think that's an interesting issue, and one I've thought a great deal about. For example, I've considered that perhaps the credit should halve for each child. That is, you have one... [ Read More (0.7k in body) ]

terratogen wrote:

n an overwhelming majority of 17 to 4, and in defiance of a threatened veto by President Bush, the US Senate Finance Committee approved a bill to expand child healthcare using a large increase in tobacco tax. Most of the Republicans on the Committee joined the Democrats to vote in favour of the bill.

I'm glad that Bush is going to veto this piece of crap. I'm of the opinion that ideally, your tax dollars should go toward something you would want to support. Smokers don't give a shit about your fucking kids. Smokers probably don't give a shit about you either... Hell, smokers don't even care about themselves. There's probably more people who smoke who are struggling financially than there are financially secure. Taxing these people because you can't afford to care for something of yours which could have been prevented with a condom is just victimizing poor people with an addiction. Using the tax dollars in helping them quit, or in their own healthcare makes sense... other than that it's bullshit.

A better idea would be to legalize marijuana. Pot smokers would be more than happy to pay for your fucking kids in exchange for legalization.

This is wrong on multiple levels. First, I'm a smoker and was asked to sign a petition against this measure recently. While I am not a fan of raising taxes, this one is a perfectly reasonable to me on multiple fronts.
First, it increases the price of cigarettes possibly encouraging people to either cut back or quit. That's health benefit #1.
Second, it provides insurance to kids. Kids who don't have it because their parents can't afford it. Bush is vetoing it because maybe it would encourage some people to drop their coverage to get in on this, and I say so god damn what? Adding 4 million kids who can see a doctor at the price of a few of them who quit paying KaiserPermanente? BFD.
Third, going back to issue one, a lot of those kids have health issues from the smokers. Is second hand smoke as dangerous as some people say it is (that is to say more dangerous than being the smoker)? I don't buy that one, but I don't have any question about its ability to cause problems, especially in kids, which is why I never smoked indoors when my daughter was around (and still don't).
This has nothing to do with birth controll so tossing that one in there is just obnoxious.
Finally, I do agree with the legalization issue. The are issues there as well, but primary health, based on a study at UCLA, does not appear to be one of them. So pot smokers could also foot part of the bill while making the world unsafe for Dorito's? Works for me.

But taking this argument out on kids who don't have coverage is a poor choice.

Mike the Usurper wrote:

This is wrong on multiple levels. First, I'm a smoker and was asked to sign a petition against this measure recently. While I am not a fan of raising taxes, this one is a perfectly reasonable to me on multiple fronts.
First, it increases the price of cigarettes possibly encouraging people to either cut back or quit. That's health benefit #1.
Second, it provides insurance to kids. Kids who don't have it because their parents can't afford it. Bush is vetoing it because maybe it would encourage some people to drop their coverage to get in on this, and I say so god damn what? Adding 4 million kids who can see a doctor at the price of a few of them who quit paying KaiserPermanente? BFD.
Third, going back to issue one, a lot of those kids have health issues from the smokers. Is second hand smoke as dangerous as some people say it is (that is to say more dangerous than being the smoker)? I don't buy that one, but I don't have any question about its ability to cause problems, especially in kids, which is why I never smoked indoors when my daughter was around (and still don't).
This has nothing to do with birth controll so tossing that one in there is just obnoxious.
Finally, I do agree with the legalization issue. The are issues there as well, but primary health, based on a study at UCLA, does not appear to be one of them. So pot smokers could also foot part of the bill while making the world unsafe for Dorito's? Works for me.

But taking this argument out on kids who don't have coverage is a poor choice.

I don't think that the tax goes toward the general social good. Education would, but healthcare exclusively for kids seems unfair especially since the smoker might have a higher need of healthcare. If society determines kids must have healthcare, it's unfair to tax anyone other than working parents. I know plenty of hard working people who could use healthcare for themselves, and I really don't think its in any way sensible for them to pay for someones kid to get it instead. If the price hike is to encourage smokers to quit, that money would be better spent on programs which would help achieve this. Smoking is not a crime and I don't think they should be required to pay a fine in order to practice their vice because parents are unwilling to take care of their own children.