Don't let the libertarianism get in the way of facts

[darklordmoeser]

So, I decided to see how Penn and Teller's Bullshit was, as it seemed from its description like Mythbusters for actual myths, like UFOs and Chiropractic medicine. And it succeeds pretty well, it being pretty easy to go up to UFO people and ask them to tell their stories and realize that they all have their own story, which seems suspiciously like

Comments

This is one of my soap box topics. I apologize for the wall of text.

[rowena_zane]

Insurance companies already do that - if you smoke, it effects your insurance. But perhaps you meant something federally mandated? Like that red meat? Don't floss? No daily vitamins? Are you overweight? Have a hamburger every once in a while? You don't see these as causing detrimental effects on our health care system? Think those people ought to pay larger portions of health care, too? I'd shudder to think what our health care system would turn into if the government decided that bad habits = higher costs per person. Insurance companies already do that.

Smoking is bad for you (we can tell from the huge warning on the package - nearly a half of the packaging, by the way, something that our government asks of no other product under the FDA). The state governments are weening America off cigarettes in the tax hikes across the nation. I see this as the best way to coerce the public to stop smoking. But like gas-guzzler cars and hamburgers, if I want to participate in a product that is bad for me and I want to take the risk, and the product is legal then I think I should have the right to do so. There are states pushing for laws, however, that are restricting smoking from all restaurants, stores, private/rented vehicles, rented properties and now even the outdoors. If you don't own your own home you're pretty much fucked. Does this seem ridiculous to anybody but me?

On a whim, I did some calculations of alcohol-related deaths.

440,000 deaths per year in the US due to smoking says, http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5235a4.htm

Using the mystical powers of math and numbers I calculate 426,533 alcohol-related deaths annually in the US due to alcohol-related deaths based on 2000-present era statistics from:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/alcohol.htm
http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/Resources/DatabaseResources/QuickFacts/TrafficCrashes/crash02.htm
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/tables/viortrdtab.htm
and basing my figures on the 2000 US population of 281,421,906 says http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_United_States_Census

And those figures only account for deaths due to alcohol-related illnesses, traffic accidents and homicides. That's not counting the injuries or robberies, rapes/sexual assaults, or muggings. That's not even accounting for the 480,000 children abused each year by alcohol-abusing guardians: http://www.marininstitute.org/alcohol_policy/violence.htm

My point being, smoking is bad. It's very bad. It's bad for your health and it's bad for the health of those near you over long periods of time. It's legal. And so is alcohol. It's not causing any more deaths than drinking, or any less. I don't see it as the Great Evil of our time.

Of course, I'm biased, and it's only fair in the discussion to point out the generations of my family that have been involved in the tobacco industry. The 90% of the world's brightleaf tobacco that used to come out of the US (70-ish% of that from right here in NC) now comes from Africa. We didn't need that revenue, I guess. Nevermind the government's tobacco subsidies that were so vilified in 1998 were paid for from the interest on loans of tobacco farms, themselves - as in, no public money. Nevermind that the government made out like a bandit off the deal due to reselling overstocked tobacco at a premium. Nevermind that tobacco built at least three of the most renowned universities in the nation. Nevermind that tobacco is the highest yield per acre, per resource, product in NC.

$1,500,000,000 per year.
http://www.ncruralcenter.org/research/tobacco.htm
http://www.ncagr.gov/paffairs/release/2009/2-09agcensus.htm
That's how much we lost from 2002-2007 in the 600,000 acres of farmland shed in North Carolina, alone. Second only to hogs and chickens, tobacco has supported us but now we don't have it to fall back on. Sure would be good right about now.

Food and drugs for thought.

Re: This is one of my soap box topics. I apologize for the wall of text.

[darklordmoeser]

My girlfriend works for BCBS, and they are actually taking steps to make overweight people pay a larger bill for their health insurance. The problems being of course, that BMI and the like are not perfect indicators of obesity and the like. Insurance companies don't like the idea of people gorging themselves into expensive disease, and I don't think it will even necessarily take the form of anti/nanny laws. Imagine if your insurance gave you a discount for having a gym membership, or chipped in for one. Its a lot of regs, but for insurance companies, whats another 2 or 3 pages to their thousands.
I tend to single out smoking, rather than alcohol, as my sin of choice to suggest taxing, because there it seems like the enjoyment for cost seems so low to me. Many people drink responsibly, and while I don't know the level of alcohol use where it can cause serious damage to you, it seems like the level of recreational use you can endure is much higher. I mean, one pack, thats what, 12 doses of cigarette, more?
The real thing that got me about P&T was not that I think people shouldn't have the right to smoke in privacy, its that their show seemed to suggest that they'd much rather like to smoke in bars. And its wrong to try to justify this by saying "oh, second hand smoke does nothing". That is patently false... I'm not sure if a blanket ban is the best way, but certainly having a smoke free bar is very nice for anyone that is bothered by it. And when they built their show strongly on "Ancedotes aren't evidence" and "always be careful with your sources", and then promptly interview a couple of bartenders who don't care if people smoke and show some Tobacco company research.. .well, its just sad.

Re: This is one of my soap box topics. I apologize for the wall of text.

[kibarika]

I think that the trend we're seeing in NC of locations (universities, restaurants) voluntarily banning smoking from their premises is really the best of both worlds. A whole industry could spring up for cigar/cigarette bars, creating a sense of community and not forcing secondhand smoke on anyone. Smokers wouldn't be forced out of the non-smoking places - they'd just have to be more careful about WHEN they smoke. (i. e., not while they're on the premises) Smart business owners know their clientele and should be able to determine if they're going to lose customers by going one way or the other on the smoking issue.

As a person who is classified as obese (but not morbidly so), I think that the increased insurance costs for obesity are very scary. Were I to eat right, exercise, and reduce my body fat percentage to about 24% (normal for ladies), I still would qualify as overweight on the BMI charts. Healthy activity is not always directly correlated to any one number an insurance company might pick. I have a friend who has good cholesterol, blood pressure, is healthy in every way - but is overweight. She's really not a risk at all for an insurance company due to any of the factors they'd associate with being overweight. So I do hope that the insurance folks work carefully on how they determine who should be charged more for that.

In my mind, the only circumstance under which it'd be okay for the government to determine who pays how much for health insurance is if the insurance is being provided by the government. Private companies should get to make their own rules (and, I believe, will make them based on reasonable risk - I know that as a person with a pretty dismal family medical history, I paid a lot more for my BlueAdvantage than a more average person my age would - and it was right for them to charge me more, as I ended up having to have emergency surgery that my family history did indeed predict).