Medicaid Could Save $2.6B Within a Year If Just 1% of Recipients Quit Smoking

Re:Medicaid Could Save $2.6B Within a Year If Just 1% of Rec... by nerdjon on Tuesday July 25, 2023 @02:57PM (#36867592)

There isn't really any positive associated with smoking, it's an industry that shouldn't exist in its current form.

If we were just talking about raw tobacco then this would be a very different discussion, but we are not.

All of the other things you are talking about while are health risks a don't carry an addictive and largely proven connection to cancer (maybe the sunscreen one but there is also a difference between making a conscious choice to do something instead of just not doing something).

There is clearly a massive societal cost associated with Smoking that I really don't think can be applied to many other things. The closest thing I can think of would be Alcohol but even that for most people is not on the same level as Smoking. At least I would not think so.

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Re:Medicaid Could Save $2.6B Within a Year If Just 1% of Rec... by prirun on Tuesday July 25, 2023 @03:39PM (#36868187)

> The closest thing I can think of would be Alcohol

Overeating IMO has become a bigger problem than smoking, at least in the US.

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Re:Medicaid Could Save $2.6B Within a Year If Just 1% of Rec... by valval on Tuesday July 25, 2023 @04:49PM (#36869270)

Wish it was that simple. Modern diets and mainstream diet guidelines are terrible for us, but going back to a hunter gatherer diet for everyone on earth isn’t all that realistic either.

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Re:Medicaid Could Save $2.6B Within a Year If Just 1% of Rec... by Turing_Machine on Tuesday July 25, 2023 @05:01PM (#36869472)

> There isn't really any positive associated with smoking

It is a highly effective antidepressant for many people.

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Re:Medicaid Could Save $2.6B Within a Year If Just 1% of Rec... by danielbln on Monday July 31, 2023 @09:40AM (#36942291)

That's a function of nicotine, not of smoking. There are plenty of less terrible ways of getting nicotine into your system.

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Re:Medicaid Could Save $2.6B Within a Year If Just 1% of Rec... by jrochkind1 on Tuesday July 25, 2023 @09:11PM (#36871934)

> don't carry an addictive

So you acknowledge something is addictive (indeed, nicotine is one of the most addictive things there is, by some measures more addictive than most any other drug) -- but think that is a reason to penalize addicts?

If something is really bad for your health but you choose to do it anyway, that's one thing -- but if we know how very very addictive it is, how very hard it is to stop doing it -- that's a special reason we should penalize addicts by charging them higher premiums?

I still don't get it.

(Presumably we should charge other kinds of addicts higher premiums too? Alcoholic? Problem with opioids? Those things will surely correlate with higher health care costs -- higher premium!)

[I haven't smoked in 47 months. It was very very hard to quit].

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