They cost 5 bllion in 05.  But SAVED way more in the long run.  Lots of studies on this.

That's according to the Netherlands' National Institute for Public Health and Environment, which found that while "a person of normal weight costs on average £210,000 over their lifetime", a smoker clocks up just £165,000 and the obese run up an average £187,000 bill.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/05/healthy_tax_burden/

Perhaps the government should subsidize smoking?

Not to mention social engineering like that is pretty immoral.

Haha, subsidised smoking, I think Obama should go for that?

I wouldn't call it social engineering though, that's the kind of thought that leads to genocide. This is just collecting taxes to pay for a government expenditure and the way they do it is by taxing the very thing that causes the expenditure.

Anyway, onto your main point. The article said

"The scientists did, however, concede their research "did not look at the total costs of obesity and smoking, just the narrowly-prescribed health costs". Report co-author professor Klim McPherson, of Oxford University, warned: “It would be wrong to interpret the findings as meaning that public-health prevention, for example to prevent obesity, has no benefits.

“Quite apart from health-care costs, the other costs to society from obesity are also greater because of absences from work due to illness and employment difficulties; these costs amount to considerably more than health-care costs.”"

Which goes to support that smokers are in fact a financial burden on the governments tax system in more ways than just direct healthcare costs. Once you think of it three dimensionally the costs are far greater than just healthcare bills.

Also, a Dutch study does not apply to a British policy. From what I could ascertain those figures are the figures in Holland and not Britain, so the study does not translate well primarily because Holland charges ~$3.17 per pack of 20, where as in the UK it is ~$7.34 and our Health funding and tax system is different so it bears little resembelance.

Additionally, once you look at it from a humanitarian point of view and not fiscal like the NHS does you find you get the best of both worlds. This is because publicly funded health is not about money but about saving lives and so getting smokers to quit is a major concern as it will add ten comfortable years to their lives. And so if you can get people to quit then great, but if they choose not to then they will contribute to their own treatment and unfortunately die ten years earlier.

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?

It's not like that's what they're trying to do anyway.  Since if everyone really did quit you'd suddenly be at a huge funding gap... AND have increased NHS costs.

It's really the government gouging people with addictions... because they can... because they're addicted.   It's reprhensible.

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.

Social engineering is anything done to influence large societies? but going by that logic everything the government chooses to do would be social engineering, whether it raises taxes, lowers taxes, what it teaches in school, what laws it passes and even that a government exists at all. also they are not preying on addictions that's totally unfair. I use the road, I pay for the road... I choose to smoke, I pay for treatment.

Going by your logic you have been supporting social engineering more than me in any case because you have been suggesting that lowering taxes to cause more people to smoke would save money.

So which way do you want it?

Social engineering by lowering taxes so that smokers die younger saving millions in healthcare? Or social engineering by having smokers pay a bit more for their healthcare through taxes so they can recieve treatment? by definition both are social engineering.

Anything it does that's biased to force people to choose something.  Not just anything.

For example taxes only on some things.

Having signle item taxes is the government saying "This is bad.  So we're going to charge you more."  This is immoral.  Also it's costing your government money.

It's the WORST of both worlds.

You keep ignoring the fact that you are charging smokers more for DECREASING the cost to NHS.

It's like charing people who DON'T use the roads.

This hit a bit of a nerve with me, since my grandfather spent a couple decades fighting off cancer that started in his prostate before succumbing to it at the respectable age of 86, all in Saskatchewan. Prostate cancer is used often in these examples, because it is a slow-growing cancer and can often be left to wait with little consqeunce, so jurisdictions looking to save a little money do exactly that. It seems that US cancer survival rates might not be all they're cracked up to be:

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2007/10/rudy_miscalculates_cancer_surv.html

The latest official figures for five-year "survivability" rates for men diagnosed with prostate cancer are around 98 per cent in the United States and 74 per cent in England.

More importantly, the survivability figures tell us little about the differences in the quality of treatment received by prostate cancer patients in the United States and Britain. Doctors in the two countries have different philosophies about how to treat prostate cancer, and these differences have greatly influenced the "survivability" statistics.

In the United States, there has been a big emphasis since the early 1990s on early screening through PSA (prostate-specific antigen) testing. Five-year survivability rates have increased simply because men are being diagnosed with prostate cancer at a very preliminary stage of a slow-developing disease. If you are diagnosed early on, your chances of surviving for another five years are close to 100 percent. Britain is several years behind the United States in the widespread use of PSA testing.

"When you introduce screening and early detection into the equation, the survival statistics become meaningless," said Howard Parnes, chief of the Prostate Cancer Research Group at the National Cancer Institute. "You are identifying many people who would not otherwise be diagnosed."

Another way of comparing treatment of prostate cancer in the U.S. and Britain is to look at the mortality rates from the disease. Here the two countries are much closer. The graph below shows deaths per 100,000 males in each country. About 25 men out of 100,000 are dying from prostate cancer every year in both the U.K. and the U.S.

Brantley Thrasher, chairman of the Department of Urology at the University of Kansas, said it was "impossible to say" on the basis of the statistics whether a prostate cancer patient had a better chance of surviving under a "capitalistic" or "socialistic" medical system. American doctors tend to be more "interventionist" and more likely to advocate surgery than their counterparts in Britain or Canada, where greater emphasis is put on "active surveillance." In the United States, a patient with a good health care plan is "more empowered to make decisions" for himself.

"You can't say that it's better to have prostate cancer here or in some other country," with a developed health care system, said Dr Thrasher, who also serves as a spokesman for the American Urological Association.

While doing this research, I also turned up this surprising study which shows that the US health system actually offers fewer services in many categories than other OECD countries (fewer doctors, nurses, bed), despite paying so much more:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/27348.php

My answer to the thread topic itself is a combination of rationing, price controls, and improved efficiency. Increased tax revenues shouldn't even be necessary, though it's always an option. The United States already spends more public money on health as a share of GDP than Canada, and it obviously isn't getting enough value for that money if so much more private money gets spent along side. If the governments of Canada can provide universal coverage for 6.84% of GDP, I see no reason why the US shouldn't be able to for 6.88% of GDP, except perhaps a lack of political will.

I haven't side stepped it at all. You took a study from Holland reported on an obscure British website to try and prove your point, I acknowledged that and shown you how the figures were not applicable at all because Britain works in a very different way to Holland. Then I went on to demonstrate how even if they are cheaper concerning medical bills they are still far more expensive than healthy people when you take in all considerations. Smokers pay for themselves, you pretty much have to accept this because the evidence exists, they cost £5bn to treat per year and provide £10bn in taxes, and the tax done not immoral IMO because it is like half the other taxes out there.

And also it is only "immoral" for those who are socialist... Are you a socialist Kasz? Because a capitalist wouldn't say it is immoral to charge people more for a more expensive service.

-edit-

My girlfriend (who is a doctor for the NHS) wants me to make the arguement that any small tax that goes to creating a better quality of life for the people that pay it cannot in any way be immoral, and is no more immoral than any other tax the government collects.

A) So it's not immoral to tax someone for being muslim if it goes to healthcare?

B) Those other costs are completly irrelvent to the government.

C) the differences between the UK and holland wouldn't effect the prices of this stuff.