How Much Does Smoking Cost Society?

[rockouthippie]

WASHINGTON — Smoking takes years off your life and adds dollars to the cost of health care. Yet nonsmokers cost society money, too _ by living longer..... Vanderbilt University economist Kip Viscusi studied the net costs of smoking-related spending and savings and found that for every pack of cigarettes smoked, the country reaps a net cost savings of 32 cents.

http://digg.com/d1oEY4

Smoke em' while you got em

[ryan]

The new smoking tax is paying for an expansion of schip. The expansion was to cover tons more kids that already had health insurance.

Unless I misunderstood what I read the other day. If I find the article I'll post it.

[rockouthippie]

You read it right.

http://www.heritage.org/research/healthcare/wm1548.cfm

[ryan]

wtf is wrong with obama... HE SMOKES. But I bet he doesn't pay for his cigarettes.

[baafie]

I think the cause is the way that society deals with older people. These days, people live much longer than they used to, with the average life expectancy hovering around 80 years in western countries. Yet people still retire at 65 (in some cases, even earlier). So it makes perfect sense that an aging society has more difficulty paying for itself, especially if more people age because of healthier living habits.

I think it is becoming clearer that people will have to work for longer to sustain social programs. Either that, or pick up smoking again.

[spiderbaby1958]

Originally posted by rockouthippie
WASHINGTON — Smoking takes years off your life and adds dollars to the cost of health care. Yet nonsmokers cost society money, too _ by living longer..... Vanderbilt University economist Kip Viscusi studied the net costs of smoking-related spending and savings and found that for every pack of cigarettes smoked, the country reaps a net cost savings of 32 cents.

http://digg.com/d1oEY4

Smoke em' while you got em

The idea that smoking saves health care dollars by killing people who would otherwise just get old has been batted around for years, though I've never seen a dollar amount before.

My father had a serious heart condition that nearly killed him in his twenties, requiring open heart surgery in the early 60s before it was common. He's 73 now, and not doing too bad for an old guy. He's outlived almost everyine on his side of the family, smokers all, by decades... but my Mom, who used to worry about him so much (they're divorced now) and just couldn't quit is having serious respiratory problems.

Nobody takes more shit than the smokers. First they were forced outside, now they can't smoke near the doorway of most buildings. They're the victim of the most evil corporate business model ever, taxed by society to pay for health care that they'll never live to use, all the while inaccurately blamed for raising the cost of health care, increasingly disrespected and segregated all the time.

Happy to say, I myself quit 25 years ago.

[rockouthippie]

Originally posted by spiderbaby1958
taxed by society to pay for health care that they'll never live to use

Lets not forget that NONE of the money in cigarette taxes goes to address the health issues of smokers.

Another little issue is that if you get lung cancer and don't have insurance you will get no help. How expensive is nothing? If you do have insurance, you paid extra for being a smoker.

[Paul_Bags]

Depending on the country, yes you do get help. Pretty sure you'd get help with that kind of shit here. We also have ACC, the Accident Compensation Corporation. So basicly if you do nothing wrong and get sick, or just generally have bad genes and need glasses etc, you have to pay your own way. Unless your right at the bottom and get social welfare. BUT if you go out, get drunk, do something stupid and break your ankle resulting in 6 months off of work? ACC pays 80% of your average wages. FTW. Sure, there are genuine accidents, but basically the government is taking X% of my wage to pay for someone else to be a dumbass, while the non-dumbasses get no help for things that totally aren't their fault.

Can you tell I hate governments?

[PaperClip]

Hmm, you can collect benefits for an injury OUTSIDE of the office? I don't know much about insurance and plans (I'll tell you that up front), but it seems ridiculous you'd be compensated for an accident that you caused, outside of the work place. I don't blame you for hating!!

[watadoo]

Hmm, you can collect benefits for an injury OUTSIDE of the office?<<<

Nope, you cant get workman's comp for not at work injuries. not in California anyway. Don't know what Paul_bags is talking about or even what country and government he hates.

[baafie]

In most western countries, you get sick pay. That means you'll get paid even if you are the cause of the sickness. Generally, your employer pays a percentage of your wages. I'm not aware of any countries where the government covers sick pay instead of the employer.

[rockouthippie]

I think he's in New Zealand where they spend a fraction of what the US spends on health care and cover everyone.

It's what happens when the medical industry, lawyers, insurance companies and politicians aren't:

A. Crooks
B. Thieves

It's also why we'll never get medical care reform in the United States. All of the above are having too good of a time ripping us off.

Before you start arguing with me, consider my last doctor visit where the doctor spent 15 seconds talking to me and charged me $165. You tell me how anyone is worth ten dollars a second.

[watadoo]

sounds like he only popped his head in the door and didn't even speak to you. 15 seconds is not enough time to walk in and sit down. i think you exaggerate or are leaving out information.

I have a great doctor who is not a crook or a thief. My medical insurance costs as much as my mortgage which hurts every month but when I have to use it covers the visits and procedures with a reasonable deductible. But then I'm lucky as my employers are Norwegians and value having a good health play that keeps the employees covered.

[Paul_Bags]

Yip, New Zealand. Here we have sick pay, your entitled to so many sick days a year for whatever (entitlement begins after 6 months of employment), you may or may not be required to show a medical certificate to your employer, depending on how many days you've had off in a row. Your employer covers this cost, at full wage. ACC covers the bigger stuff, broken foot and can't work for 3 months? they pay %80 of your wage, averaged over the last year. I'm not sure if your employers supposed to cover the other %20. You also get free physio etc.
However if your sick, as opposed to injury, you can't claim cheaper doctors visits on ACC. Like that time my knuckle swelled up due to infection, couldn't work cos I couldn't move my hand, had to pay full after hours (weekend) rates, plus the antibiotics, and that cost about as much as a days wage. Also, I'd only been at that job for 5 months, so I couldn't get sick pay either. So thats 2 days wages down the drain because my knuckle swelled up. Pretty shitty.

[rockouthippie]

Originally posted by watadoo
My medical insurance costs as much as my mortgage.

Then you say:

Originally posted by watadoo
I have a great doctor who is not a crook or a thief.

Are you really that dense? Let's say he's just a member of the cozy little RACKET that the American medical system is.... including the insurance companies, ambulance chasing lawyers, and politicians on the take from the latter.

How much was the weekend rate Paul? A days wage? It wasn't the THOUSAND DOLLARS poking your head into an American emergency room costs? Of course, that's a thousand just to walk in the door. Anything else is extra. A lot extra.

Let's compare 3 mattress stitches to my hand in an American hospital. I cut my hand.

$1000 Emergency Room
$600 to the ER doc for 3 mattress stitches that took about 5 minutes.
$80 for a shot of anesthetic.

The lions share of a months pay for a half hour at the hospital. Next time I'm just gonna get out the superglue!

I'm sure there is one drawback to the NZ system. Their doctors, lawyers and politicians probably have to play golf on a public golf course. Poor bastards!

[watadoo]

Don't call me dense, asshole. My health insurance rate is not determined by my doctor. He is not a crook or a thief. He's just a guy who has to deal with the same system as the rest of us and doesn't need insulting by the likes of you.

God, it must suck to be you and just be slathered with spittle from your constant rage. Your Doctor deserves to make $600 for dealing with the likes of you -- even for only 10 seconds.

But yes, you could easily stitch yourself up next time and save the money. With luck it won't get infected and you won't lose your hand.

Oh, and that's far less than a weeks pay for your trip to the hospital, bubba. If you had insurance it would likely have only cost you a $25 deductible or so.

[rockouthippie]

Originally posted by watadoo
If you had insurance it would likely have only cost you a $25 deductible or so.

Plus medical insurance that's more than your mortgage...

I suggest that when you go to the hospital that you look at the real bill, not your co-pay. The reason is that you paid 15-35% more than that as overhead for the insurance companies. About 20% of your bill will go back to insurance companies to pay lawyers half of what you get if your doctor screws up.

New Zealand spent 8.9% of GDP in 2008 on medical care and covers everyone. The United States spent 17% in 2008 and left 20% totally uninsured and the bulk of people under insured.

The reason we are screwed:

inefficiencies, excessive administrative expenses, inflated prices, poor management, and inappropriate care, waste and fraud.

http://www.nchc.org/facts/cost.shtml

But your doc is such a nice guy and couldn't possibly survive on the average $200,000 a year salary for a GP. And, of course, his hospital couldn't survive without charging $2000 a day for a room that isn't as nice as a Motel 6! Or $20 for a Tylenol!

Originally posted by watadoo
My medical insurance costs as much as my mortgage

That is because you are getting raped. Dense is not an adequate word.

[rockouthippie]

Originally posted by watadoo
Oh, and that's far less than a weeks pay for your trip to the hospital, bubba.

I didn't realize being a 12 year old atheist communist payed so well.

[Paul_Bags]

If I was earning that much a week I'd be fucking 12 hookers at once for 4 hours of every day while snorting just under the lethal dose of cocaine, every day. Seriously, that a fucking insane amount of money to get some stiches, my fucking brand new bicycle didn't cost that much. Fuck.

And the reason I hate out current government? THey've already started down the road of running the ACC into the ground so that they can say it's 'inefficient' and 'partially privatize' it, in effect giving us the same shit you guys have except heres the sweet part: it'll still be a required tax, you'll HAVE to pay for medical insurance with these guys, covering only injury, and then they can do whatever they like. Fucking morons in my country voted for this. Damn it.

[rockouthippie]

I'm sure it couldn't be higher than what Americans pay for no benefits at all. 18% FICA and 9-18% Workmans Comp.

Even when I've had insurance, the coverage had such a high deductible it would only do me some good if I was hit by a truck and run over by a road grader. Then I'm sure the insurance company would have tried to weasel out of stuff.

Average good insurance cost for a family of 4... about $13,000 and a third of households only make $25,000.

When we say 20% uninsured, we don't count people who have insurance which is just about worthless. If you look at that article I posted above, you'd see that 65% of medical bankruptcies are by people that had insurance.

[Paul_Bags]

Well I used to earn under 26000 a year, in fact now I earn less, and our dollars worth about half of yours... of course I only have myself to support.
We have 1.9% of our income go straight into ACC levys. We have, I think, free health care for children to a certain age, as well as the 'community services card', basically entitles low income earners to cheaper health care. Our A&E is free also, dunno what budget they have never mind as a percentage of tax but yeah, free health care if you go straight to the hospital and it's not trivial enough that they turn you away. Waiting times can be damn long unless your dying though, mainly with people getting all the free care they can.
Employers pay ACC levies too, and I think they pay more if they have more injuries in the work place, so it's an incentive to make work places safer too.

Of course there are tax breaks designed specifically for families, and basically our whole system is different, so a direct comparison of medical costs could be meaningless when you consider the comparative means of the people to pay those costs.

[rockouthippie]

One example is my mom. Her meds got screwed up. Her doctors took three blood tests and didn't tumble to the fact that she was absorbing more medication than she had been. She decided to lose some weight and it made a difference. She took some bad falls.

Anyway, they kept her in the hospital for three weeks with just basic nursing care. The bill was $80,000. That's probably a little over 3 years pay for me. Being 70 years old, medicare and her supplemental insurance covered it..... but three weeks in the hospital for me... I'd be done...

I think three weeks in the hospital would bankrupt most Americans... even with some insurance...

[baafie]

Originally posted by rockouthippie
I didn't realize being a 12 year old atheist communist payed so well.

This on the assumption that accusations of atheism or communism are somehow insulting?

For the record, I don't believe that the majority are out there gaming the system to be able to spend their weekends on island resorts. Most of them are just trying to support their families like everybody else.

Several friends of mine are US doctors and they're pretty much unanimous in that they find it awful to do what the system forces them to do. So rest assured, many of them don't like it.

[rockouthippie]

Originally posted by baafie
So rest assured, many of them don't like it.

Oh yeah, they just have to keep a gun at their head to cash the checks And when you ask them, it will always be somebody else that makes too much money.

[baafie]

Originally posted by rockouthippie
Oh yeah, they just have to keep a gun at their head to cash the checks And when you ask them, it will always be somebody else that makes too much money.

I think you must not realise how much of their income goes to legal insurance. So far as I know, that's the single biggest expense in US health care.

But maybe I should just not bother, because it seems once you have made up your mind no amount of rational argument can change it.

[rockouthippie]

Average income for GP's is about $300,000 a year. Sometimes for exercise, I help a friend of mine who is a landscaper do some 3-10 million dollar estates owned almost exclusively by doctors and the lawyers that sue them.

Not only are they screwing us over for health care, they are the stingiest, most demanding assholes you ever met.... with a damn few exceptions.

While they themselves work for $10 a second, they'll want to get blown for $10 an hour. That wouldn't be so bad except half of them are about half competent. One thing having had to deal with ill parents has taught me. Doctors are lazy bozos.

[watadoo]

Average good insurance cost for a family of 4... about $13,000 <<

I pay around $500 a month, that's $6k a year for a family of three -- if you're paying $13k you have a lot of nerve saying I'm the one being raped. But then I don't believe your numbers. From the very first post of yours I saw years ago, you were pulling facts out of every orifice you could reach -- a totally unreliable source who's only defense when called on his lies is to change the subject and name call.

I'm not 12, sport, and I don't get paid for being an atheist (scratching my head trying to figure out what the Hell my belief or non-belief in magical beings has to do with health insurance or my job, but then this is a conv. with ROH, all bets on rationality are off). I have an adult job and get paid quite well for my skill-set and my work ethics and the results I get. Your pay is likely commensurate with your work skills and very obvious lack of social skills. I wouldn't hire you to pull weeds in my garden.

[rockouthippie]

http://www.webmd.com/news/20070911/f...iums-top-12000

Either your employer is contributing or your coverage is shit. Your mortgage is $500? Where do you live? A cardboard box?

[watadoo]

Originally posted by rockouthippie
Average income for GP's is about $300,000 a year. Sometimes for exercise, I help a friend of mine who is a landscaper do some 3-10 million dollar estates owned almost exclusively by doctors and the lawyers that sue them.

Not only are they screwing us over for health care, they are the stingiest, most demanding assholes you ever met.... with a damn few exceptions.

While they themselves work for $10 a second, they'll want to get blown for $10 an hour.

Boy howdy that' a whole lot of irrational class hatred slipping out there, bubba. You really hate your life and feel so worthless as all that so all you can do is re-channel all that ignorance and aggression and fear into attacking the more successful/educated/happier and well adjusted people?

[watadoo]

Originally posted by rockouthippie
http://www.webmd.com/news/20070911/f...iums-top-12000

Either your employer is contributing or your coverage is shit.

Of course my employer is covering some of the cost. I have a real job with a responsible company.

[rockouthippie]

And that's money that they don't pay you! Thousands that they don't pay you!

Class hatred? No. I just don't like assholes. Rich people tend to be assholes. Not all. Just most.

I think Obama said it right, that being in Washington was sort of like being on American Idol. The problem is everyone is Simon.

What's the difference between a porcupine and a Porsche? On a porcupine the pricks are on the outside.

[watadoo]

Originally posted by rockouthippie


Class hatred? No. I just don't like assholes. Rich people tend to be assholes. Not all. Just most.

No, you see, that's class hatred right there. Grouping people and calling them assholes by the simple gauge of how much money they have and what they've acquired. It's all about the greed and jealousy and self hatred that's festering inside you like a swollen tick. You're a sick man, get help before you blow and end up shooting up a mall or something.

[rockouthippie]

It's really that on an individual basis most of the rich people I have met are completely hedonistic, self centered and self involved. There are rare exceptions.

I'm not jealous. Who could live with all that vanity and crap?

I'd just like to see health care not be a blank check. I'd like to see lawyers, politicians and BANKERS not have a blank check either.

[watadoo]

I've met some of those same folks, on that we find common ground. I just won't go so far as to make blankeet statements like, "rich people are assholes" cause I also know a few people you may well consider to be rich who are generous, wonderful, thoughtful people. I've met redneck dirt poor guys living in fly-speck towns that meet the same criteria. The only difference is a bit of education and a bit of luck. Both rich and poor work their asses off, in my experience.

[fc*uk]

Originally posted by baafie
Several friends of mine are US doctors and they're pretty much unanimous in that they find it awful to do what the system forces them to do. So rest assured, many of them don't like it.

My wife is a doctor and agrees 100% with baffie's comment.

I'll stop there.

[rockouthippie]

Yes. It's always somebody elses fault! Insurance companies.... student loans.... "deadbeats" who can't pay.... Waaaaa!

You'll have to remember yesterday I was hanging off a 20 foot ladder trimming arborvitaes for an MD/hospital administrator at his 5 million dollar house complete with 2 brand new Escalades and an extra Porsche.

Rest assured that if I fell off the ladder, he would make every effort not to kick me as he stepped over my body on the way to the private golf course.

He will spend 20 minutes trying to jew $50 off a landscaping bill threatening to hire illegal aliens instead Luckily it's an empty threat, because somehow he tries to forget that it cost him $1200 to fix the damage the last batch of illegals did to his yard.

I'll stop there.

[watadoo]

He will spend 20 minutes trying to jew $50 off a landscaping bill <<<

do people really still talk like that? I haven't heard that lovely bit of antisemitism for decades, since I was in grade school.

Is there anyone you don't hate?

[Wildrose-Wally]

I'm not prejudiced, I hate everybody equally.

[fc*uk]

RoH: sounds like that dude is a fucking prick.

My wife and the attendings she works with work around the clock to help people. In what she wants to do, these people are in more than dire need. Many of the attendings will do any procedure on anyone for free, all the person has to do is promise not to sue (they do high risk operations). You wanna know how many times these doctors have performed free surgeries? They can count them on their two hands. They all have been practicing anywhere from 2-30 years.

Don't let the few vocal asshats out there cloud your judgment and make you disposed to the fact that the evil physicians created this system. Most of the good ones out there despise it and do everything that they can to "break the rules" to make sure the patient gets what (s)he needs. You outta see how pissed they get when the insurance companies deny procedures.

[rockouthippie]

Originally posted by fc*uk
RoH: sounds like that dude is a fucking prick.

In the "pill hill" neighborhood he lives in he is the rule, not the exception. I think screwing the "help" must give them bragging rights at the golf course.

"break the rules" to make sure the patient gets what (s)he needs. You outta see how pissed they get when the insurance companies deny procedures.

I've seen how they "break the rules" in my mom's medical billings. It's called fraud. Nobody gave away so much as a free tongue depressor.

No, not all doctors are evil. But they are hardly the saints they'd like to get painted as. In the wake of their general inaction at least 50,000 people a year die of nothing! Nothing that a few minutes of a doctors time wouldn't cure anyway. Sure. It's not all their fault, but if someone is going to change that fact; who else?

What I hear from all the involved parties (lawyers, doctors & insurance companies etc.) is that we will continue to buy them 2 Escalades and a $150,000 Porsche while they live on the 5 million dollar estate and screw the help.

That somehow $3000-$6000 a day for a hospital room is reasonable. That $10 a second for a doctor is reasonable. That 35% overhead in insurance companies is reasonable. That $20 for a Tylenol is reasonable. The reform? Figuring out how to get us to pay more!

My rant doesn't probably matter because as insurance premiums go up 10% a year... soon no one will be able to pay... you saw the housing bubble... look for the medical bubble... Medical care hitting 20% of GDP is not sustainable.

Originally posted by watadoo
I haven't heard that lovely bit of antisemitism

Oh, eat a toad you little liberal twirp! I have jews in my family and they wouldn't take offense. They hardly need your protection. You'd hate em anyway. If you think I'm a conservative? LOL!

No, they wouldn't buy any of your liberal "victimhood" at all. You could call em names. Just don't give em a cyanide shower or tat serial numbers on em' and they're happy. It's the difference between knowing what real oppression is and making some bullshit up to get a free ride.