IN RESPONSE: Smoker hacks into insurance cost claims of ban backers
I could not let Jackie Jackson's letter of April 19 go without response.
She regurgitated the typical lies we hear about smoking. It drives up insurance costs, second hand smoke is the root of all evils, blah, blah, blah!
Do smoker's really drive up insurance costs or is it all you do-gooder health nuts who plan on living until you're 100? After all, the majority of health care expenses come from end-of-life care such as nursing homes, hospice care, doctor visits, prescriptions, etc. We smokers will be long gone by then. Actually, smokers are paying for all those benefits that you health nuts will be receiving.
And please shut up with all the junk science about secondhand smoke! Do you really think that we are getting unbiased information about smoking and secondhand smoke from groups like The American Heart Association, The American Lung Association, or worst of all, the federal government? I am amazed at how incredibly gullible most people are. Some group comes out with a bunch of statistics and people believe it. Just because a geek in a lab coat does some study does not make it scientific fact! Just look at all the global warming hype.
Jackson made a comment about how smokers are "self-serving". Let me get this straight, you think you have the right to tell me what I can and can't do in my business, and I'm the self-serving one? What a hypocrite! How much of my property taxes are you going to pay this year? And the "double-dipping" I take on Social Security and Medicare as a business owner, how much help can I expect to receive from you on that? My guess is zero, which is exactly how much business she has in telling me how to live.
