9 Responses to “Child Health Bill Now Veto Proof”

1. somebody Says:
   August 3rd, 2007 at 1:28 pm

   Prediction: it probably won’t help children too much.

2. Jeremy Says:
   August 3rd, 2007 at 3:19 pm

   “Prediction: it probably won’t help children too much.”

   If it helps just [one] child, then it will be helping vastly more than the “health care” bill before it.

   What do you get when you take the “health” and “care” out of health care? You get:

3. DosPeros Says:
   August 3rd, 2007 at 9:49 pm

   Jeremy — the question is definitely not “does it help one kid?” The question is whether or not the net benefit to children has increased or decreased. If it helps one kid and kills another, then its a waste of time.

   The problem is that it is funded with a $.40(?) cigarette hike and it is common knowledge those who can least afford to smoke, smoke the most - lower income. So what what you have here is a regressive tax which hits lower income families the most - a gift from the poor to the middle class.

   As for the middle class, isn’t it funny how the average income going towards mortgages has gone from 25% to 50% and more. And consumer debt seems to be a national passtime. If the middle class would spend less on their house and the stuff they put in their house using a credit card maybe they could affard health insurance for their children.

   But hey poor kids, the middle class kids appreciate it. While your dad sucks down an old death stick, just think about me at the doctor getting a check up. Then I get to go home and play in my 4000 sq. foot house with my Super Barbie Pony Head. Meanwhile, you get to suck in that smoke in a Section 8 shit hole playing with a fucking lighter.

   Nice Democrats, real nice. Way to go after those richies.

4. Jeremy Says:
   August 4th, 2007 at 5:28 pm

   “The problem is that it is funded with a $.40(?) cigarette hike and it is common knowledge those who can least afford to smoke, smoke the most - lower income. So what what you have here is a regressive tax which hits lower income families the most - a gift from the poor to the middle class.”

   Hi Dos, I believe Americans have a right to work hard and attain the nicer things in life. More taxes make that prospect less attainable for us all, however, I know with 100% certainty that the cigarette industry is a merchant of death. I can recommend a few books you might want to read about the cigarette empire and how much it costs this country in lives and treasure, the numbers are absolutely incredible and the research is empirically derived so its credibility is not in any question.

   Personally I think cigarettes should be abolished, outright. I’m sure the consummate cigarette smoker is going to argue with this stance 100% percent, and why shouldn’t they? The fact is, even with the wide scale banning of smoking in public venues across America people that don’t smoke and people that choose not to smoke are still subjected to the cancerous fumes of inconsiderate smokers all the time, whether a person is driving down the road and they have their windows down the guy next to you is smoking it up and the toxic fumes are drifting into your car, or when you are standing at a bus stop stall waiting for the bus and the guy next to you is lighting up. I’ve even seen mothers with their babies in strollers where a guy was smoking it up in the same stall poison the air while this mother sat there with her baby. It was raining outside and this lady had nowhere to go and in affect was made to inhale the cancerous fumes of this guys stinky habit. Now, how the nation wide ban in public areas put an end to second-hand exposure to lethal cigarette fumes? No, it hasn’t.

   Now it would be entirely different if a guy or a girl was chewing tobacco. Fine! this isn’t floating in the air we must all breath and a person isn’t unfairly forced to smell and breath some guys clearly poor habits.

   So, while an yet [another] increase in cigarette taxes is inconvenient, it isn’t nearly as inconvenient as the inconsideration millions of Americans must put up with because of some uneducated, uncaring person that has a selfish habit and which obviously cares little to nothing about his own health or the health of others.

   I personally would like to see cigarettes taxed out of existence. The harm and the ill-health that is caused directly by the inhalation of this noxious weed is by far a worse epidemic than hardcore illicit drug use, worse than alcohol consumption and worse than all car accidents in the country, combined!

   The facts are clear. This is a drug, it causes cancer. It’s not a matter of “free choice” or ones “rights”, no one has the right to expose others to radioactive material, no one has the right to splash poison on another person, and no one should have a right to put others at risk because of their unintelligent life decisions.

   I am quite frankly tired of hearing the dubious arguments posed by those who choose to engage in this deadly activity. This isn’t about “freedom” and “ones right to choose what one does”, take that bullshit argument and throw it back where it originated. Big Tobacco has framed debates about the risks or non-risks due to smoking, and it has been consistently debunked and dismissed for what it is, it’s about money and selling a dangerous narcotic. Why is it that this country can spend billions of dollars on the “war on drugs” and put small time pot growers in prison for years at a time but our government doesn’t outlaw a far more dangerous drug, cigarettes? I will tell you why, because of money, because of lobbyists, because of big tobacco.

   I’ve seen quite a few people in my life time engage in the use of marijuana. I’ve never seen any of them contract cancer. So for all the time, energy and billions of dollars that goes to putting these “dangerous pot heads in prison” this country continues to allow a drug to be sold legally on the market that has killed millions upon millions of people.

   So, another cigarette tax? Yeah, that is inconvenient, it may be a burden put on the middle class by the poorest of Americans, bit it doesn’t compare at all to the raise in taxes the “middle class” is getting for the so-called “War on Terror” which is supposedly taking place in Iraq. How sad it is though that we have spent hundreds! of billions of dollars and all we have to show for it is more terrorists?

   You want less taxes? How about we stop shipping our jobs over to China, you know? the ones that big corporate America keeps telling us will be a “good” move.

   I’m ALL for F-r-e-e-d-o-m, but really! why are our taxes really going up? is it a measly cigarette tax or the soon to be Trillion dollar war that has bought us absolutely F’king nothing?

   Maybe if Bush didn’t borrow money from China like a lonely QVC crazed house wife with nothing better do than spend the farm. Cigarettes are the least of our worries, I can guarantee you that much right now.

5. Jeremy Says:
   August 4th, 2007 at 5:36 pm

   I meant to say [cigarette taxes] are the least of our worries right now.

6. Puzzled Says:
   August 4th, 2007 at 9:36 pm

   What is DosPeros talking about? Being poor doesn’t necessarily mean you smoke. The medical insurance system is so bad in the U.S. that it is a crap-shoot on whether you can get it.

   Even upper middle class people has trouble getting medical insurance. If you have a pre-existing condition or ill in any way you can be denied coverage no matter how much money you have.

7. Ric Says:
   August 5th, 2007 at 2:06 am

   $.40 now. Then when the run it for a year and claim to have helped 200 million children, by their “official study”, just think of the number of children that could be helped with $1.50, and a $1.50 tax on liquor. As long as it is a Sin Tax nobody is going to complain, because you can’t go against the children.

8. Jeremy Says:
   August 5th, 2007 at 3:20 pm

   How many billions of dollars do we pay in indirect costs due to the ill effects of smoking?

   Seems to me the American public is subsidizing the the Tobacco industry as it is evident they don’t bear even a fraction of the costs the American people end up paying due to the short and long term affects of smoking. Time lost from work due to sickness, asthma in kids…the list is a mile long and the evidence is all there to support it.

   So? why does big tobacco get to stay in business then? If they are costing this country far more in terms of lives and treasure than they obviously compensating for, well! it’s pretty easy, it’s called lobbyist and corruption.

   There’s a reason people aren’t legally allowed to possess grenade launchers, they are dangerous. Yet, cigarettes have killed countless millions and they are allowed to sell this poison because the use the venal American political system to their advantage.

   No American supports outlawing vices, we all believe those decisions should be left up to us, but enough is enough! We don’t let people legally snort lines of cocaine in this country because it is destructive, the same needs to be done about this scourge. Countless millions dead, countless billions spent and for what? Greed! pure and simple. How about these cigarette barons get into a real line of business and stop destroying the health and lives of Americans. 3,000 people died on 9/11 and people are incensed, alright that’s understandable.

   “Smoking harms nearly every organ of the body; causing many diseases and reducing the health of smokers in general.1 The adverse health effects from cigarette smoking account for an estimated 438,000 deaths, or nearly 1 of every 5 deaths, each year in the United States.” - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

   How many 9/11’s does that add up to folks? And yet! we hear nary a peep about these tragedies. Got to love American logic, it’s comical indeed!

9. DosPeros Says:
   August 5th, 2007 at 10:04 pm

   Justin - Smokers and fat people save us money. They pay into Social Security and Medicare and then they die.

   Harvard economist Kip Viscusi ran the numbers on smoking, even before the big payday for the government known as the tobacco settlement. Said Viscusi in a 1997 interview for the PBS program TechnoPolitics, “Because it’s risky, [smoking] has adverse health effects that increase medical care costs of people when they are younger. But, in addition, smoking kills people,” says Viscusi. “And smokers tend to die after they have contributed to Social Security and Medicare, but before they’ve collected all of their Social Security pension and Medicare benefits. As a result, there is a cost savings at the end of smokers’ lives, and a cost increase earlier. But, on balance, the cost savings offsets the cost increase, so that smokers offer a net financial gain to the government…society saves almost $30 billion a year in Social Security benefits and Medicare benefits that would otherwise have had to be paid out, had smokers lived.”

   30 Billion Justin. So on behalf of fat smokers everywhere: Quit whining like a sissy nanny-state new-age socialist - unless that is what you are - in which case I totally respect that and would like to hear more about your perspective.

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