US Universal Healthcare: How are we going to pay for it?

[Kasz216]

highwaystar101 said:

Kasz216 said:
You don't feel like it's immoral for the government to control behavior by levying unequal taxes on people who make the same amount of money?

I would if it was in an extreme way, but I feel as though a tax on cigarettes to pay for treatment is akin to paying road tax to use your car because your car damages the road. It's a government expenditure and so they are taxing it at the source, like many things. Now if the government levyed a tax that was for extreme or financially uneccesary social engineering then I would be the first to speak up about that.

Mind you, you say social engineering, I think that is an unfair definition of taxing cigarettes to pay for treatment. Your definition seems to be raising taxes to stop something that kills people people... To me that's no more social engineering than teaching kids not to smoke while they are at school.

So stop putting a horrible definition on something that does not require/fit it. Social engineering is what the Nazis and Soviets did, this is completely different.

It's not controling behaviour, people are still free to smoke. In fact it works very well because the more they smoke, the more they pay for the higher treatment costs they will require.

But when looking at NHS smoking SAVES money... as you saw in that article.  Other costs are assosiated that may increase it beyond... but those have nothing to do with NHS.

Also Social Engineering is the process of trying to influence large societies of people.

That's the correct term.  It's the terms politicians in the US talk about when they talk about this kind of stuff.

When you pass a law to get people to quit smoking or use less gas.  That is social engineering.

Like I said.  It's the government using it's influence and treating people differntly to try and get them to acti differently.  WHILE praying on those with addictions.

It's horrible.

We do it in the US all the time.  Throw an extra dollar of taxes on cigarretes for a new stadium, or schooling, or for a new muesuem.

It's just a way to tax people who have an addiction and who already have less disposable income then someone who makes the same amount of money because they're feeding their addiction.