WHAT THIS COUNTRY NEEDS IS MORE SMOKERS

And in case this sounds crazy - look up the study that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study was done in England (a country with "universal" health care), and looked at the lifetime health care costs of smokers vs. non smokers.

WHAT THIS COUNTRY NEEDS IS MORE SMOKERS - Smoking takes years off your life and adds dollars to the cost of health care. Yet nonsmokers cost society money...by living longer. House members described huge health care costs associated with smoking as they approved landmark legislation last week giving the Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate tobacco products. No one mentioned the additional costs to society of caring for a nonsmoking population that lives longer. A White House statement supporting the bill, which awaits action in the Senate, echoed the argument by contending that tobacco use "accounts for over a $100 billion annually in financial costs to the economy." However, smokers die some 10 years earlier than nonsmokers, according to the CDC, and those premature deaths provide a savings to Medicare, Social Security, private pensions and other programs. Vanderbilt University studied the net costs of smoking-related spending and savings and found that for every pack of cigarettes smoked, the country reaps a net cost savings of 32 cents. Sell just 10 trillion packs and we can pay for the Obama budget!