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, 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 die in squalor.

Obviously many parents would like to be apart of a shared cost guaranteed way of getting healthcare for their kids. If they want to get this from the government, then I think they should be the main group to cover the course. There should be a way to opt out of it, but there shouldn't be a way to hop back on the bandwagon if your kid suddenly falls ill. Maybe some things should be a given like vaccinations and such and as these fall in the area of the general public good, that money could come from a more broad pool. The system would only work if most kids in the program were health, so if they don't contribute, they should not be covered. If the cost one contributes also scales in proportion to how much a families income is, then I think it might cover the cost of the families who would not be able to afford anything else. The other issue might be creating disincentives for this coverage to come from existing insurance companies and through employers. This would put a higher burden on middle and upper middle class parents, however in this way everyone will be able to receive a benefit from the program, unlike the smoking tax.

The cost of YOUR insurance or your children's insurance should probably not come from smokers.

As I said, it doesn't, because they're more likely to use the system then I am. If I someday contract tuberculosis, a lot of people who never have, and never will, get TB, may be paying for a portion of my treatment. Someday one of them might lose his legs in a car accident and all the rest of us non paraplegics will be paying for his treatment. The money to treat disease or condition X cannot possible come only from people who have or have had disease or condition X; that breaks the system. The money comes from everyone, and, sometimes, from other sources.

The money comes from others WHO ARE COVERED. Smokers are not covered in this plan.

Why not tax video games... That's a bit closer. There's enough of a bullshit case to be made that they harm society... and video games are more likely to influence kids than smokers are.

If you're genuinely equating adults playing video games with smoking, you've seriously lost your credibility. There are certain things kids shouldn't do. Smoking and playing violent video games are among them and parents should enforce that. But to argue that for me, an adult, to play video games has an effect similar to me, an adult, smoking, is completely outside the realm of rational argument.

It's a targeted area of society which could be exploited and taxed. Violent or not. It's one of the largest industries in the country so obviously gamers can afford the tax, gaming ruins your eyesight which raises health costs of people who don't, people regularly loose jobs because of WoW and other similar type games and raise the unemployment rates, children who plat video games are more prone to be diagnosed with ADD and other learning disorders than other kids which put a strain on the educational system and the cost of healthcare when they are prescribed pharmaceuticals to treat the disorder. There are plenty of other reasons I can keep listing, but in no way do I see taxing videogames as being LESS FAIR than taxing smoking, and in my opinion there is a slightly higher correlation.

...I for one am glad that this is getting vetoed (and so is Vile).

Of that last parenthetical, I have no doubt. I can only assume that by bringing him into this, you're making your best effort to discourage me from continuing this discussion, given my history of pointless argument with his inane opinions. Very well, I concede. You "win". Enjoy the last word.

He stopped by last night and edited that last bit in himself rather than logging me out. The rest of the argument is mine (minus a few typos like "costed" vile fixed).

RE: Senate Panel Approves Huge Tobacco Tax To Fund Child Healthcare