Submitted by tamara, Oct 5, 2007 08:42

Its nice of you to comment on the demographics of the population who smoke. I think you did it in hopes of swaying that particular demographic in raising a ruccus because of the new tax. That would be a minor spoof since it is in the interest of this same demographic to have the tax in place so that it could provide health care for their children as well as themselves.

However, you did mention the penalty could also sway smokers into becoming non-smokers. Wow. Imagine if all of these poor, poverty-stricken people stopped smoking. What would be the effect I wonder? Hmm...Maybe there would be less out of pocket costs for asthma medications, heart medications, voice box apparatuses. The list could go on. These same people whom you mention will be affected by this tax increase could use a little nudging to not smoke. Maybe then, health care costs would not be so much, which would then lower the amount of money the government would have to shell out for each indivudual that it covered. Imagine that!!!

But for the time being, if the tax is used to increase the number of children that the government covers medically by 4 million, I think its a good trade off.

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