Asked at an Iowa forum on cancer whether banning smoking in public places would be good for America, Clinton replied, "Well, personally, I think so. And that's what a lot of local communities and states are starting to do."So she has no proposal at all and when asked, she offered her "personal" opinion and then immediately referred to state and local government, which, presumably, she sees as the right level of government for this sort of thing. She then talked about how her state (New York) has adopted a ban and that it's worked out well, and when asked about a nationwide approach, she explicitly rejected it.
Drudge triggered our fear of the Hillary Nanny State. Maybe we should be hypersensitive about what's in store for us, but her statement was outstandingly mild.
Bonus video:
ADDED: The video -- a cigarette commercial -- makes such a phallic argument for smoking. And check out the look in the woman's eyes when she finally gets to smoke. It's a crazed look I've only ever seen from the False Maria in "Metropolis."
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100 comments:
I don't understand why you continue to think Drudge is so readable. If I read any paper that was so full of errors and mis-statements, I'd cancel my subscription (unless it had a good comic section). That people think he has something important to add to any discussion is lamentable.
Free yourself from your Drudge Addiction! Un-bookmark him now!
I'll bet that guy didn't actually haul in that marlin because he was wheezing too much!
How about a video where a guy in a hospital with lung cancer gets to see frolicking marlins in the distant ocean...
Phoney headline notwithstanding, Ms Clinton is actually behind what many states and local communities are already doing. She's just endorsing what is going on nationallyl.
Having moved from health conscious WA state to Memphis, TN,I have been struck by the frequency of smoking and the smell of cigarette smoke in restaurants and other public places. (Full disclosure: I am a cigar smoker but I make it a point to smoke outside my house in the back yard and nowhere else)
Have been watching 1963 episodes of "The Fugitive" which was just released on DVD.
There's actually a hospital scene where a doctor, dressed in a surgical gown, sits down on a waiting room sofa, lights a cigarette, and chats with a relative.
Smokes up a storm, too....
PS--Great old TV show....
"If I read any paper that was so full of errors and mis-statements, I'd cancel my subscription (unless it had a good comic section)."
That rules out the New York Times on both counts.
I love how rich politicians with personal chauffeurs like Hillary! and Nanny Bloomberg think that New York's smoking ban has worked out so well; they don't have to walk around the sidewalks of New York City dodging crowds of noisy drunk people standing outside every freakin' bar smoking their lungs out. I've never had to breathe as much second-hand smoke as I have going for walks in the evening since our Nanny Bloomberg decided that it was better to send all the drunk smokers out in the streets. What a success that policy seems when you only see the city during the day through the tinted windows of your limo.
I don't think you see the bigger picture. Smoking is associated with a significant number of hospitalizations. If Hillary is going to socialize our industry, then she will need national policay on smoking, alcohol, overweight and other issues to help reduce the number of admissionns. You see, socialization of the medical industry is not just isolated to our loss of freedom. It means the loss of freedom for the nation as well.
Clinton can say that she would oppose a smoking ban all she wants. However, we all know that she would never stand up to a ban. If the political winds were blowing that way she would go along with a ban.
It's the principle of the matter. Hillary's principles are not with personal freedom. Her principles favor equality over freedom - meaning she prefers the nanny state.
We should never forget this about Hillary despite her "conservative" rhetoric.
I hope davidc.’s exaggerating. I hate to think the day will come when I’ll be puttering around in the garden and these two beefy guys in uniform will tackle me to the ground and rub me with sunscreen. Yuk.
Can't you people read?????? She gave a personal answer. She has introduced no legislation nor backed any national legislation to that end. She offered her opinion when asked and rightfully placed the decision on state and local governments.
Please state for me a NYTimes article that is so woefully inaccurate and misleading. Go ahead.
If this is what Hillary faces from the out of control right wing haters then why she would want to be president is beyond me.
Drudge was discussed at length in other threads and very recently. Yet you excuse him and his purposeful inaccuracies and outright lies and go with typical "yeah but...." postings.
You decry the left for its Bush bashing yet you do it immediately when it suits you.
Friggin hypocrits.
"...her statement was outstandingly mild." Nice segue into the Pall Mall spot.
The Drudge story may be wrong in its inference but it's right about impression and our intuition- that controlling Hillary is all about carrot sticks, not tobaccy ones and other vices, and as Prez she'll abuse government to better us. If only the Repubs had a smokin’ charismatic candidate.
" I hate to think the day will come when I’ll be puttering around in the garden and these two beefy guys in uniform will tackle me to the ground and rub me with sunscreen. Yuk."
2 beefy guys in uniform... sunscreen lotion... tackle... rubdown...
Bissage, you're making me want to become a socialist...
Palladian, and who can blame you? Immediately upon the inauguration of the Hillary, the United States will become a gardener’s paradise.
Heh.
If the political winds were blowing that way she would go along with a ban.
To be fair, if the political winds were really blowing that way, just about any of the candidates now in the race would go along with a ban. The mischief with Hillary is that she'd also go along if the NYT were to start frantically flapping its editorial page trying to move enough air to simulate a political wind. (I say it's only a matter of time.)
they don't have to walk around the sidewalks of New York City dodging crowds of noisy drunk people standing outside every freakin' bar smoking their lungs out.
Palladian, Madison has banned smoking in restaurants and bars (You're shocked, I know), and it was such a welcome change. If smokers want to pollute the air outside, well that 2 seconds of smoke I must endure before entering a bar with clear air is quite worth it.
I went home to PA to my high school reunion a couple years back, and the first night's venue was in a classmate's bar, and the amount of smoke in there was horrible. How can anyone endure that?
Smoking bans work very well for Madison -- and neighboring communities are starting to ban smoking in restaurants and bars now too. That's how things are supposed to work.
wow, Drudge incites overreactive imaginations in the right wing- how radical...
the libertarian in me has always had a problem with the way government has descended upon smokers (of which I am not and have never been one)...however the pragmatist in me believes that smoking in public places puts unneccesary harm on non-smokers.
here in Toronto they've had a smoking ban for a while, and it doesn't seem to have stopped people from hanging out in bars, in fact it may have brought in some customers that would otherwise have stopped frequenting smoke-filled pubs.
Wonder if she would support a ban on cigars in the oval office?
Hey folks...we all have to dodge the sidewalk smokers in NYC but it is better that than running into smoke filled offices and restaurants....the wind does blow here.
but this is ABOUT DRUDGE and his skewing stories and picking out words that try and do his work. It is very sad that drudge is read for anything other than entertainment and finding out what some people choose to consume as either news or fact. very very sad.
Well, sorry, I'm still not overjoyed with what the smoking ban in New York has done to the streets. Have any of you had the displeasure of walking around downtown on a Friday or Saturday night? Not that there weren't plenty of drunk people being a nuisance before the smoking ban, but it's much worse now. And I am exposed to much more second-hand smoke just walking down the street than I was when the toxin-spewing riff-raff sealed themselves in their drunk holes.
Viewing the smoking ban in light of the newest initiative that will force "chain" restaurants (not the high-class establishments where the elites eat, mind you!) to onerously display nutritional information on their menu boards, it's just a paving stone on the way to an increasingly meddlesome, censorious nanny state. New York has decided to lop off its balls and turn into a sootier, more expensive version of San Francisco. And why stop there? With the surveillance "curtain" proposed for downtown Manhattan, and streets filled with quarrelsome chain-smoking drunks, it's taken London as its role model.
Sloan - How does she not support personal freedom? She supports the freedom to go to a public place without other people breathing toxins in your face. I just got back from a trip to Europe, and, let me tell you, I never appreciated the American bans on smoking in public so much as I did while in Paris.
Furthermore, readers of this blog should know that Althouse thinks Drudge is a joke, and merely links to him because somehow he brings her readers.
To be fair, if the political winds were really blowing that way, just about any of the candidates now in the race would go along with a ban. The mischief with Hillary is that she'd also go along if the NYT were to start frantically flapping its editorial page trying to move enough air to simulate a political wind.
That right there is art.
It's not so much what she said just then, but the full context in what she has said in the past; "I will take things away from you for your own good.
Her support as POTUS of such bans gives cover for other nanny-state authoritarians in lower levels of government to push this and other "for your own good" crap on everyone else, regardless of party.
I don't care whether you have a "D" or an "R" after your name, I don't want elitist authoritarians in office, especially that of the POTUS.
" whether banning smoking in public places would be good for America, Clinton replied, "Well, personally, I think so. "
Translated: Yes, I believe state coercion is appropriate to enforce whatever I consider is good for you.
"And that's what a lot of local communities and states are starting to do."
Translated: The Founding Fathers were wrong. Majorities can overwhelm individual rights whenever they want. A feudal society is best, in which one has no natural rights, just those permitted by the state. Usurping liberty in the name of community can be accomplished at state and local levels just as easily as at the federal level, so yes, I am comfortable with that.
So "Pall Mall" is pronounced "Pell Mell"? Who knew? I would think they'd want to avoid associating their product with the word "pell-mell".
And that woman is positively bonkers.
Look, Hillary knows that tobacco is as American as America itself. And just as Rufus King was, she's a noble lawyer. She'll settle.
For instance, suppose those of us who wish to pursue happiness via nicotine agree to smoke only three-fifths of our cigarettes. Why wouldn't that be fair?
Besides, Hillary is not stupid. She sees what's happened to Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia. AQ said smoking tobacco is unIslamic and started chopping people's fingers off for doing it. But Iraqis love their smokes so they started putting a few little terror boogers back on AQs' hapless asses.
Now it's beginning to look like Bush is going to prevail in Iraq after all. Hillary gets that. She's no stand-by-her-cigar-diddlin' brownie bakin' dummy.
"It's a crazed look I've only ever seen from the False Maria in 'Metropolis.'"
Apparently, Althouse has never seen "Reefer Madness"
Meade -
It looks like Bush is beginning to prevail in Iraq after all??? Really? Really? I bet the 8% of its airtime that Fox News devotes to the war has left you misinformed.
Meade said:
"...she's a noble lawyer."
"Besides, Hillary is not stupid."
"Hillary gets that. She's no stand-by-her-cigar-diddlin' brownie bakin' dummy."
Idol worship is so unbecoming.
She offered her opinion when asked and rightfully placed the decision on state and local governments.
Wow and I never imagined Hillary was a closet federalist. I wonder if she thinks there are any other ‘issues of national importance’ that should be delegated to state and local government.
I find it delicious that some folks become contortionists when trying to defend their pet candidate when they suddenly say something that conflicts with the standard leftist dogma.
wade garrett said: "I bet the 8% of its airtime that Fox News devotes to the war has left you misinformed."
Fear not, wade. Apparenlty less coverage is a positive in your view, and the MSM is struggling mightily to manintain your ignorance.
Wade, Wade, Wade -
I don't need no stinking Fox News to misinform me. I can do it allll by my self.
So I'll take that bet, good buddy. But to be fair, I should inform you - I ain't got no TV.
Here's some fair and balanced news you can use: TV'll kill the brain cells that give you your sense of humor.
As it were.
Myself, I became sick and tired of it and decided not to take it anymore. Trust me, G-man, I can safely recommend it to you.
HoosierDaddy
I read your post up to the part where it said "I never imagined..." and frankly that is the least of your ills.
Just returned from a visit to Drudge:
BROKEBACK BATHROOM: SENATOR BUSTED IN AIRPORT SEX STING...
CRAIG'S LIST: TERROR IN THE TOILETS...
Now that's funny.
pogo,
the founding fathers said that local communities didn't have the power to ban smoking in public places? how enlightening, you're so well read.
hdhouse said I read your post up to the part where it said "I never imagined..." and frankly that is the least of your ills.
Sorry house, did I use too many big words for you?
and, ann, how shocking that drudge slandered a democrat! shocking!! but it was so readable!
Palladian - Viewing the smoking ban in light of the newest initiative that will force "chain" restaurants (not the high-class establishments where the elites eat, mind you!) to onerously display nutritional information on their menu boards, it's just a paving stone on the way to an increasingly meddlesome, censorious nanny state. New York has decided to lop off its balls and turn into a sootier, more expensive version of San Francisco. And why stop there? With the surveillance "curtain" proposed for downtown Manhattan, and streets filled with quarrelsome chain-smoking drunks, it's taken London as its role model.
It is getting pretty bad. Cops in Long Island set up a roadblock of thousands of people leaving a beach tournament whose whole purpose was to video and issue 75 dollar fines to "reckless" people not wearing their seat belts. Problem was everyone was leaving about at the same time and the moron cops set up a monumental traffic jam on a crorching day where people took off their seatbelts and were getting in and out of their cars as they waited and were video'd "unbelted" and unsafe!!
Over in CT, their AG, Richard Blumenthal, a smarmy, power-thirsty clone to Eliot Spitzer and Chuck Schumer just managed to get 3,000 people summoned to pay huge fines for buying cigarettes on the Internet or paying for them in other States with the same credit cards.
(Leading of course to "new fears" that with Northeast States doubling or tripling their taxes on cigarettes, cigars, beer - that "terrorist gangs" like Hezbollah, MS-13 - will be making huge money smuggling 2 dollar a pack cigarettes from the South to Hillary's NYC friends where such deadly things go for 8.50 a pack.
Duhhhh!)
Hezbollah, BTW, is already selling cigs in NY and other high tax states.
My brother in law, who smokes, proudly showed me his 50 pound bale of cigarette tobacco and boxes of rolling papers and filters he bought in N Carolina for 110 bucks - which he says with cigarettes now costing 160 a carton in Brooklyn - will save him over 4500 a year. "Fuck Spitzer, fuck Bloomberg."
(He also bought a huge pile of fireworks in NC he plans on setting off as yet another "fuck you" to the Bloomberg Nazis & nannies. And he is a Democrat...)
New York is also the place, along with San Fran, natch, of adding new "Safety Nazi" taxes on french fries (to be put for new government "heroes" who will be hired to fight "America's growing childhood obesity menace") and requiring restaurant workers to recommend "safer and better food" to customers. A NYC state senator said in Albany that "it wouldn't kill a restaurant employee to suggest a more sensible salad to an obese female"...well, yes, it just might, depending on what weapons the fat lady had...
***********************
SGT Ted - Her support as POTUS of such bans gives cover for other nanny-state authoritarians in lower levels of government to push this and other "for your own good" crap on everyone else, regardless of party.
Thinking that Safety Nazis and gun banners had more power and moral authority than the NRA, cost Al Gore the Presidency.
Hillary, I think, is smarter than that.
But as a Democrat, I think clueless that relentless taxes or impositions create a black market or drives behavior underground (a local school had their Nazi zealots out in force to find out who had smuggled forbidden candy bars in and were selling the "bars of death" to other students.)
Lung surgeons need steady hands.
I'm no fan of tobacco, but that commercial is the greatest thing ever.
"Ah sweet nicotine" you can hear her think "dulls the psychic pain... MORE MORE MORE!!!!!"
I HAVE HAD TWO CLOSE RELATIVES DIE OF LUNG CANCER, DIRECTLY RELATED TO SMOKING, AND IT'S HARD FOR ME TO UNDERSTAND HOW ANYBODY STILL SMOKES. (THE NEXT TIME YOU READ THE OBITS IN THE PAPER, COUNT HOW MANY OF THE DEATHS ARE RELATED TO "CANCER.")
I CERTAINLY UNDERSTAND HOW HARD IT IS TO QUIT, I SMOKED MYSELF, BUT WITH THE MASSIVE EVIDENCE AT HAND, AND WITH APPROXIMATELY 1,000 PEOPLE DYING IN AMERICA ALONE...EVERY DAY OF THE WEEK...I SUPPORT ANYBODY WHO PUTS AN END TO THE HEALTH PROBLEMS AND INSURANCE COSTS RELATED TO SMOKING.
(SORRY ABOUT THE CAPS...DIDN'T NOTICE UNTIL I WAS ROLLING)
Oh, by the way;
Here in California they outlawed smoking in restaurants/bars, etc. years ago...and everybody said it would "destroy" commerce...but it hasn't even made a dent...but we have lots of people who did quit.
meade says: "Now it's beginning to look like Bush is going to prevail in Iraq after all. Hillary gets that. She's no stand-by-her-cigar-diddlin' brownie bakin' dummy."
What the fuck are you SMOKING??
By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 28, 2007;
The NIE, requested by the White House Iraq coordinator, Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute, in preparation for the testimony, met with resistance from U.S. military officials in Baghdad, according to a senior U.S. military intelligence officer there.
Presented with a draft of the conclusions, Petraeus succeeded in having the security judgments softened to reflect improvements in recent months, the official said.
Re: "HARD FOR ME TO UNDERSTAND HOW ANYBODY STILL SMOKES"
...and, therefore, according to Hillary, reason enough to eliminate persoanl choice and liberty, and enforce a smoking ban.
After all, that method was so successful with the alcohol ban by the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, since repealed.
What health state nannies refuse to learn is the unintended side effects of such actions. Prohibition ushered in organized crime to the US, which had never existed as such prior to that well-intended law.
One can rightly expect crime to increase as a result of these bans, even fostering gang and mafia activity. The 1920s had its charms, but Al Capone wasn't one of them.
Hoosier Daddy...trust me. You don't know enough big words to stump me.
Palladian...are you actually comparing the Drudge Report to the New York Times??
That you'll find as many misstatements and erroneous reporting in the Times...as you'll find on a daily basis with Matt's rag? (You do realize he doesn't actually "create" reports or articles...he merely material created elsewhere, then throws them out to the public...with little if any vetting.)
I appreciate your undying loyalty to all that is right wing, but I'm sure Matt is a fine fellow and we all love his Walter Winchell hat, but...get real.
Pogo,
I realize you do little if any actual reading, but have you ever heard the phrase: "passive ingestion of smoke?"
Why not check into how many people are affected by the smoke that is created by the people who enjoy what you refer to as "persoanl choice and liberty."
Have you ever experienced the agony, frustration and downright misery of watching anyone close...dying of lung cancer or related ailments?
Maybe a visit to a hospital will open your eyes to what takes place.
Re: "Why not check into how many people "
I have. No problems have I with banning smoking in the courthouse or library. Or if a private landowner prefers to to forbid it, good on her.
But what the hell the state is doing demanding a bar forbid smoking is beyond me. Or me smoking in my own car.
By the Health Nanny State method of reckoning, we should also ban alcohol, driving, rock climbing, skiing, intake of more than 1500 cal per day, and of course gay sex. No, all sex, except by virgins who stay married.
Hey, guess what, the Democrats share numerous planks that fit quite well with Sharia law.
Whoda thunkit?
Next up: mandated foot baths.
There are some potential new therapies in research that deal with the problem at the brain receptor level.
LOS does not understate the case about damage from smoking. Its linked to four of the top ten causes of death NOT including malignant neoplasms of the lung. (Other cancers, stroke, heart disease, and chronic respiratory diesease). I suspect we are at the point where we down to the hard core group that simply can't or wont quit (approximately 20%). This group will probably not be "reachable" short of some sort of pharma intervention. And these folks, unfortunately, are going to probably die in some unpleasant ways as well as increase the cost of health care for those who were able to quit.
Re: "as well as increase the cost of health care for those..."
Exactly my point. With national health care, every activity can be monitored and corrrected, forbidden or mandated as to whether it increases costs for health care. Everything. Hours of TV watching. What books you read. Your recreational activites. Your practice of religion. What you eat every day. How many glasses of wine per day or week. Everything has a plausible health care piece to it.
Funny how quickly the anti-wiretappers are to give up their liberty to the the State. Why is that?
Pogo said...."Funny how quickly the anti-wiretappers are to give up their liberty to the the State. Why is that? "
Good question. My guess is because they are idiots :-).
As for Drudge, his site is fun to read, but only because of the variety of articles he links to. If I had to make a choice, I would say he favors reps over dems.
I think its a good thing to ban smoking on government (the peoples) property. I also think its fine and dandy if private bussiness owners (bars, restuarants etc) decide to make their establishments smoke free. They certainly have that right - just as business owners should have the right to make their establishment a "smokers only" kind of place. Why I am in the minority on this view is well beyond my understanding (wink).
to HDhouse,
I too have seen and suffered through the loss of a love one due to lung cancer. My Dad smoked like a chimney his entire adult life but died of kdney failure at the ripe age of 87. My loving wife, who never smoked a day in her life died of lung cancer at the young age of 48. Go figure :-(. Must be in the genes.
Luckyoldson quoted...
Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post...
"...Petraeus succeeded in having the security judgments softened to reflect improvements in recent months, the official said."
What improvements? There haven't been any improvements. The NYTimes hasn't reported any improvements. What's Petraeus been smoking?
Hairybuddha exclaims: "Pail Mail"? I didn't know it was pronounced that way. I thought it was pronounced pahwll mawhll. Like going to the mall.
Obviously I don't smoke or know any smokers.
ron: the libertarian in me has always had a problem with the way government has descended upon smokers (of which I am not and have never been one)...however the pragmatist in me believes that smoking in public places puts unneccesary harm on non-smokers.
The libertarian in you must not have put up much of a fight before being killed off by the socialist in you. You can't even muster any concern at all about personal liberties, diversity, choice, or property rights.
The NYC smoking laws that Hillary wants to see go nationwide are well beyond protecting non-smokers in public places. Most smokers understand and accept reasonable laws that protect non-smokers in places where the non-smoker can't easily and be fairly asked to choose to be away from the secondhand smoke. That problem was eliminated years ago, yet the anti-smoking cursaders didn't declare victory and move on, they kept looking for more ways to bully smokers around.
I don't know all what NYC's anti-smoking laws involve, but I do recall reading a piece in Vanity Fair about how Vanity Fair's editor, Graydon Carter, has been fined for simply having an ashtray in his office as a decoration, whether it is used for cigarette smoking or not.
here in Toronto they've had a smoking ban for a while, and it doesn't seem to have stopped people from hanging out in bars, in fact it may have brought in some customers that would otherwise have stopped frequenting smoke-filled pubs.
Well, smoking bans have been enacted recently in Northeasern Ohio (where I am) and many bars have been hit hard, as well as their customers. There are more than a few bars around here, for example, that have been the longtime hang-outs for smoking factory workers. Why must some yuppie who never sets foot in their bar insist they cannot have their hangout as they like it?
If smoke-free bars bring in custmers who used to stay away from the smoke, cool. There was no reason someone couldn't open smoke-free bars before any city-wide bans were passed. Then we have choice and diversity. What you obnoxiously demand is that every bar in the world be to your tastes or not be allowed to exist.
No, there's not much a libertarian in you. And BTW, bars are not "public places," they are privately owned property.
I have two questions for you:
1. If Hillary gets here way and every place in America copies NYC's extreme anti-smoking laws, will you then finally leave smokers alone? Or will you then move forward to the next step of bullying, once again claiming the libertarian in you was hesitant at first but it "seems okay to me" (you being someone not personally effected by the nanny-state legislation).
2. Will you expect Canadians who smoke to stick up for your liberties when your government starts legislating against activities and lifestyle choices you enjoy but they find annoying?
Lucky: Why not check into how many people are affected by the smoke that is created by the people who enjoy what you refer to as "persoanl choice and liberty."
Have you ever experienced the agony, frustration and downright misery of watching anyone close...dying of lung cancer or related ailments?
Where, in 2007, are you required to be exposed to secondhand smoke? Since the battle to ensure you, Lucky, don't have to be around secondhand smoke was won years ago, maybe you should move on to all the pollution the majority puts out into the air that we're all required to breath. For some reason the majority is perfectly ago with all their polluting activities, which of course are far more harmful than a few smokers in a bar that wants to welcome them and that you never have to set foot in.
Typo correction: For some reason the majority is perfectly okay with all their polluting activities, which of course are far more harmful than a few smokers in a bar that wants to welcome them and that you never have to set foot in.
haha
anti-smoking laws make you think of sharia law?
could you be more buffoonish?
As someone who has lobbed some bombs in your direction for uncritically echoing Matt Drudge, I want to thank you for this critical expose of Drudge's bull-loney.
Thanks.
Re: "anti-smoking laws make you think of sharia law?"
Much as both are examples of using State power to enforce approved private social behaviors arising from ideologies fond of totalitarian approaches, well, yes, of course.
As someone who has lobbed some bombs in your direction for uncritically echoing Matt Drudge, I want to thank you for this critical expose of Drudge's bull-loney.
Well, this is not as much B.S. as Drudge manufacturing that story about Michelle Obama attacking the Clinton family that Althouse ran with and built on. But then Althouse wants Hillary to defeat Obama.
This headline does not say "Hillary Supports A National Law Against Smoking." It says Hillary supports a national smoking ban, then links to an article reporting that Hillary loves NYC's extreme anti-smoking laws and wishes to see similarly strict laws enacted across the country.
As President she will have a lot more ability to pressure the country in that direction, and, with a Democratic Congress she would not have to impose a national law to force it if she chose to force it. She could blackmail the states to force them to pass NYC-style laws, which we now know she wants to see enacted everywhere. No dpubt she will emphasize that with the socialization of health care she also is pushing the government will have more legitimacy in dictating our lifestyles, whether it be about smoking or junk food or whatever.
Off Topic: 3 measly posts today? And the last one at 8:43 a.m.? What's up Chez Althouse? The comments get too long to read when there are fewer-than-your-normal amount of posts.
/end off-topic.
zzRon said...Pogo said...."Funny how quickly the anti-wiretappers are to give up their liberty to the the State. Why is that? "
"Good question. My guess is because they are idiots :-)."
Another moron who connotes health with civil liberties.
Makes me wonder if they attended high school...or have had a loved one die of smoking related illness.
LoafingOaf said..."Where, in 2007, are you required to be exposed to secondhand smoke?"
Where the fuck do YOU live? Do YOU travel?
Try Oregon, Montana, Wyoming, the Dakotas, and many more.
Hey...maybe if you were to actually READ...??
Duh.
I suggest everyone here...who thinks smoking is just fine...and some kind of "civil liberty"...visit a cancer ward and discuss their stand with patients.
Thanks for calling me a socialist, LoafingOaf...I can show this to my liberal friends who keep calling me a 'conservative'.
Also, thanks for holding forth on who is and is not a worthy of being libertarian, I'm glad that ideological rigidity seems necessary to you.
As per your questions: Will I finally leave smokers alone? I didn't realize I was torturing smokers in my spare time...good thing I have the current Bush administation to guide me as to what is and is not 'torture'...maybe the 'Bush administration' is not the right phrase...how about Nanny With Waterboarding State...that's better.
The second question was whether I'd expect smoking Canadians (as opposed I hope to smoking hot Canadians, which I married one and that's why as an American I'm in Canada by the way so it isn't exactly MY Canadian government just so we're clear) to rush to protect my choices and activities blah blah blah.
Geez I hope I don't have to rely on Canadian smokers to save me as they are probably short of breath, and waiting in line for more cigarettes!
No, what I'd hope is that we can reach some reasonable majoritarian decision that protects the rights of everyone. Freedom and liberty come with responsibility and prudence after all. (unless you're arguing libertarianism should equate with anarchy?)
Anyway, OafingLoaf, relax, I'm 70-80% on your side, and if they try to pass a law forcing you to stop smoking in your own home, please feel free to put me down for a $100 contribution for your cause, and I'll change my voter's registration to your district and march on the city hall with you!! I'll even paint the signs (wouldn't want you getting your cigarette too close to the paint fumes anyway!!!)
Where the fuck do YOU live? Do YOU travel?
Yeah, I travel. Last time I was in San Francisco, for example, I wondered why their airport had removed their small, glass-enclosed, ventilated smoking enclosure. I realized why in the city when some ninny came out of her store and walked down the sidewalk (I wasn't close to her door) to tell me I shouldn't smoke...outside.
In neither of those cases were non-smokers impacted by secondhand smoke, so what's their beef? They wanna dictate my behavior, whether or not it impacts them.
Try Oregon, Montana, Wyoming, the Dakotas, and many more.
All of the places you list have various laws about smoking at the state and/or city levels. Apparently their laws can never go far enough for you.
And, in general in America, you are not likely to have second-hand smoke going into your lungs (whatever we believe about the science as opposed to hype about secondhand smoke) in airplanes, buses, trains, museums, universities, government buildings, movie theaters, hospitals, offices, etc etc. Smokers often have trouble getting a smoking room at a hotel, but you have no trouble finding a non-smoking room. Etc etc.
So I no longer believe people who say they are forced to breath in secondhand smoke in places they can't easily - or can't be fairly asked to choose - to not be in.
Smokers have been very accomodating to them over the years, for example enduring long plane flights without a puff. As hard as a 6 hour flight is without a smoke, that sort of ban is reasonable, and the smoker never even asks for a "Thank you" for suffering for the comfort of others.
When will the anti-smoking zealots compromise for once in their lives. When I was in school, the university had already banned smoking virtually everywhere but allowed one out-of-the-way lounge for smokers. Then a ridiculous student claimed she had been sitting near the lounge (her choice) and later got in a car accident (?!) because the smoke she was subjected to made her light-headed or some sh*t. It made no sense, but the lounge went smoke free.
More of these anti-smoking crusader students started complaining about one longtime smoking area outdoors that was near some stairs (not the only set of stairs) that went down to the street level. It never dawned on these complainers that if the smokers were nice enough to stand outside where the university placed cigarette disposal thingies, maybe they could consider taking another set of stairs if it bugged them so much to endure one second of smelling it.
The question is, when will you folks stop demanding that the laws go further? It's obvious we're talking about more than protecting non-smokers from secondhand smoke; we're talking about people who wanna use the law to dictate/modify behaviors and selfishly demand everywhere and anywhere be exactly as they prefer it, giving no inch to others' preferences.
And that's why you can't handle a bar existing that chooses to welcome smokers when you could simply choose to drink elsewhere.
Oh, and smokers also have to endure the government constantly sticking their fingers into their pockets with more and more "sin taxes" (what an insulting name for a tax) to fund everything under the sun that they can't persuade anyone else to wanna pay for.
Also, thanks for holding forth on who is and is not a worthy of being libertarian, I'm glad that ideological rigidity seems necessary to you.
You said yourself that the libertarian in you lost out to something else. However okay it seems to you that smoking is banned in bars, it's obviously true that there are people in Toronto who wanna open bars with smoking, and people in Toronto who wanna go to such bars.
Well, at least you've got casinos in Canada. Ohio won't allow 'em....
if they try to pass a law forcing you to stop smoking in your own home
Oh, they're already trying.
I've almost entirely stopped smoking and don't smoke in my home unless I'm very stoned or drunk. Just a light social smoker now outside the home, only in certain settings. Not an addict anymore.
Oaf,
I feel sooooooooooooooooooo sorry for you smokers.
Maybe some kind of monument?
I know...a huge black lung.
Don't worry about me, Lucky. I'm pretty sure my lungs have mostly healed.
Well, I'm still gonna die of something, and so are you. You knew that, right?
I'm glad you're worried about the smoking laws not being strict enough in some small, barely populated town in Wyoming that you don't live in. No, Drudge was totally wrong, you guys aren't after a nationwide ban at all.
Hey, Lucky, I think you gotta have Hillary crack down on Wyoming all together. They can own guns, they're not taxed to death, my god they're like...free! We can't have that. For their own good, right?
Here's a nice photo for Hoosier and others who demand the right to SMOKE.
http://news.yahoo.com/photo/070829/481/c7413f42bf5e40759737c7eef5aac3b5
Oaf says: "Don't worry about me, Lucky. I'm pretty sure my lungs have mostly healed."
Maybe.
It depends on how long you smoked.
One of my best friends died of lung cancer last year and he quit about 25 years ago.
Regardless...isn't a tad stupid to be defending people's right to kill themselves and others who happen to breath the air they expel? (400,000 here and about 5 million worldwide)
Even YOU'RE not that dumb...right?
OAF,
Personally I don't care if you kill yourself with cigarettes, but it does impact health insurance rates for everybody so that itself warrants some restrictions...and of course, passive ingestion kills.
LOS said "but it does impact health insurance rates for everybody "
Hate to break it to you, but smokers cost less money in the long run.
It's far cheaper to die early. Long life is a good thing, but it ain't cheap. And you can't cite cost savings as a benefit of non-smoking (you can, but only if you disallow the cost savings of dying early).
Pogo says what most people are too discreet to say.
I think it was a defense in some of the tobacco cases, but it was in such bad taste that it didn't really work right.
Pogo,
You have to be one of dumbest people I've ever encountered.
You actually think smokers help keep health care costs...lower???
So that means the massive costs of treating cancer patients isn't passed along to other patients? That people who never smoked, stay healthy and live longer...cost more...because they live longer?
If you ever took the time to actually research what you say, you'd know that a vast majority of people NEVER even use their insurance, but for minor maladies such as the flu, etc. A very small percentage ever use insurance for catastrophic health issues, with a vast majority of people never spending any time in hospitals.
Smoking most certainly does impact everybody's health costs and there have been a number of extensive studies that prove just that. (It also impacts productivity and income)
If you really want to understand the impact, here's a good start:
http://www.mit.edu/people/jeffrey/House_Testimony_Nov_1993.html
I won't spoon feed you the truth, LOS. But it's true. Preventive measures, in the long run, don't save a cent. They may be right to do simply because being healthy is better than being unhealthy, but don't behornswaggled into believing it will save any money. There's simply no evidence of that, and plenty otherwise.
Longevity, in fact, is quite costly. It's a good thing, but it ain't cheaper than dying young, even from cancer. Really, I have seen the numbers and would drag them out if I thought you were even the least bit honest a debater.
But you're not.
P.S. When I read "You have to be one of dumbest people I've ever encountered." I read it to mean I haven't a goddamned clue what you're talking about. That is, I smell victory.
Althouse is right. Indiscreet is my middle name. I blame Grandma Indiscreet, who had that lack of a frontal lobe executive control mechanism allowing one to avoid saying the very thing that should not be said.
Pogo,
Why not provide a shred of evidence that smoking does NOT increase health cost for others?
Instead of just mouthing off?
You're un informed and flat out wrong.
Pogo,
If I were you I'd be pissed at grandma for the genes she evidently passed on to you.
"You're un informed and flat out wrong."
The Health Care Costs of Smoking
Jan J. Barendregt, M.A., Luc Bonneux, M.D., and Paul J. van der Maas, Ph.D.
NEJM Volume 337:1052-1057 October 9, 1997
Conclusions: If people stopped smoking, there would be a savings in health care costs, but only in the short term. Eventually, smoking cessation would lead to increased health care costs.
___________________________
Free Lunch on Health? Think Again
David Leonhardt
NYTimes August 8, 2007
"No one really knows whether preventive medicine will save money in the long run, let alone free up the billions of dollars a year needed to help pay for universal health insurance. In fact, studies have shown that preventive care — be it cancer screening, smoking cessation or plain old checkups — usually ends up costing money. It makes people healthier, but it’s not free.
“It’s a nice thing to think, and it seems like it should be true, but I don’t know of any evidence that preventive care actually saves money,” said Jonathan Gruber, an M.I.T. economist who helped design the universal-coverage plan in Massachusetts.
"As Dr. Mark R. Chassin, a former New York state health commissioner, says, preventive care “reduces costs, yes, for the individual who didn’t get sick.”
“But that savings is overwhelmed by the cost of continuously treating everybody else.”
...“Fundamentally, if you’re going to control health care costs, it involves denying people care they want — or things they’ve been trained to think they want,” Mr. Gruber says. “There is no easy answer."
_____________________________
One report from 1997...? Think things haven't changed a tad in 10 years? Check out what health care and hospital costs are today, versus 1997.
Here's a hint: In 1980 a hospital room cost about $800 A WEEK
Today it costs about $300-500 a DAY.
*And that's JUST THE ROOM.
And what does "preventive health care" have to do with smoking related illnesses affecting overall health costs?
POGO:
JS ONLINE: NEWS: MILWAUKEE
Hospital prices can make hearts skip a beat
Posted: June 13, 2006
My wife says I always grossly underestimate what things cost. So when Fred Tabak asked me to guess how much his angioplasty was, I doubled the number that popped in my head.
Let's see. The routine artery-clearing procedure took about an hour and Tabak said he spent one day recovering at Aurora St. Luke's Medical Center. That sounds like maybe $5,000, so my final answer was $10,000.
Double that, Tabak said.
Wow, $20,000?
Now double it again, he said. The hospital charge was $43,383.
"And that doesn't include the doctor's bill," he said.
Face it LOS, you're wrong. I chose two pieces spanning 10 years for a purpose. The NYTimes story is just a few weeks old, and the experts cited are not anti-single payer advocates. They just point out the unpleasant truth that preventive care does not save money. We do it so that people are healthier.
But healthy people live longer and continue to consume health care resources. Even without smoking histories, people will continue to have bypasses, lung cancer surgeries, etc. Just later. And later is good. But later isn't cheaper.
As I had said, you're not an honest debater, so detailed discussion is pointless. However, it is fun -sometimes- to see you flail and punch wildly.
1. Medicare Beneficiaries’ Costs Of Care In The Last Year Of Life from Health Affairs, July/August 2001; 20(4): 188-195. "About one-quarter of Medicare outlays are for the last year of life, unchanged from twenty years ago." This is regardless of smoking, which declined in that interval, because people will still die without cigarettes.
2. As Death Nears, Health Costs Soar from the Sunday, February 25, 2007, issue of Albuquerque Journal "Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Mexico found that 56 percent of all the money the company spends on a member's care is spent in the last six months of the member's life. That includes elderly people, accident victims, seriously premature babies, middle-aged cancer patients. When the Blue Cross and Blue Shield member is older than 70 years at the time of death, 68 percent of all spending occurs in the last six months of life."
3. And even Hospice care doesn't save any money.
Hospice: Does It Still Save Medicare Money?
David Kidder. Journal of Palliative Medicine. 1998, 1(2): 151-154. doi:10.1089/jpm.1998.1.151
"These investigators asked, would total Medicare spending be lower over the last year of life for hospice beneficiaries? The answer was "no." Although the numbers did show an annual saving for hospice pagrams
of $8, the estimate fell far short of conventional levels of statistical significance. Thus, at best, the federal government probably broke even with the hospice program in place during the first 2 years of the benefit."
4. Saying "angioplasties are exensive" doesn't come close to meaning "without smoking, we'll spend less on angioplasties and less on health care in total". I don't think you even understand that part.
5. Living Wills don't save money.
Experts Dispute Remark That Living Wills Save Money By Ceci Connolly Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, May 6, 2005; Page A09
"Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said this week that encouraging senior citizens to write living wills could dramatically reduce Medicare's skyrocketing health care costs.
But a large body of scientific data -- including an article co-written by the Bush administration's Medicare chief -- offers little or no evidence that living wills or hospice care lower medical bills."
6. Who will take care of an older population?By Dennis Cauchon, USA TODAY 10/24/2005
"The surprising thing about healthy seniors is that they don't save Medicare money. They might cost the program even more. Average lifetime medical costs after turning 65 are about the same — about $225,000 in 2005 dollars, of which Medicare pays $135,000 — no matter how long a person lives.
But living longer through medical innovation — rather than by staying trim and not smoking — is very costly.
"The dirty little secret of public health finance is that cigarettes are a very cost-effective killer," Goldman says. "Living longer is great for society but a disaster for government programs."."
And if you're analyzing the cost to the public, you have to go beyond health care costs. The longer people live, the more Social Security they collect. And how much do they pay in taxes? Lucky, you just don't want to look at the disconnect between the emotional loss we feel when someone dies young and the way older people consume resources.
Althouse is correct:
The Proposed Tobacco Settlement: Who Pays for the Health Costs of Smoking?
CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
AUTHOR: Jane G. Gravelle
DIVISION: Economics Division
DATE: Updated April 30, 1998
"For example, total medical expenditures due to smoking are reduced by offsetting reductions in costs because of premature death. A person who dies from a smoking related disease causes an increase in medical cost at that time, but medical costs are decreased in the future because
that person does not suffer the illnesses otherwise suffered during a longer life. Similarly, smokers who die prematurely lose retirement benefits in the form of social security, which is a financial saving for the government (since the smokers are generally alive during the contribution period).
In this analysis, the federal government saves about $29 billion
per year in net health and retirement costs (accounting for effects on tax payments). These include a saving in retirement (largely social security benefits) of about $40 billion and in nursing home costs (largely medicaid) of about $8 billion. Costs include about $7 billion for medical care under 65 and about $2 billion for medical care over 65; the remaining $10 billion cost is the loss in contributions to social security and general revenues that fund medicaid. (Note that medical costs already include offsetting savings for premature death and thus are much smaller in the aggregate than in the Rice estimates). The federal government also collects $5.6 billion in cigarette taxes. This calculation implies that smokers (past and present) currently save the federal government almost $35 billion per year.
State governments also have an overall saving, though smaller,
of $2.1 billion. This saving takes into account the large saving in nursing home costs financed through medicaid ($4.8 billion) which exceeds net medical costs of $1.5 billion. The remaining difference reflects a cost of $1.8 billion from foregone contributions and a benefit of $0.6 billion in retirement savings. States also receive about $7.6 billion of cigarette taxes, for a total annual saving, including cigarette taxes, of almost $10 billion.
Private third parties also have savings of $5.4 billion largely because a $22 billion saving in pensions offsets the net costs smokers impose on employer health plans."
Pogo,
Can I have a filet from that Sacred Cow of LOS' that you just BBQed?
Sgt...another moron rears his ugly and uninformed head.
Here we have two idiots who think smoking doesn't effect overall health costs for Americans.
Get real.
Show me where any of these studies point out how smoking DOESN'T effect health costs, along with decreasing earnings, etc.
1.) The most recent annual U.S. health care bill was $1.7 trillion, according to The Detroit News, p 4A (Tuesday, 11 Jan 2005), citing the journal Health-Affairs (Jan-Feb 2005). How much of this cost is preventable, is (for example) tobacco-related?
2.) "Cigarettes may cost smokers more than they believe," says "Study: Cigarettes Costs Society [smokers] $40 a Pack" (AP Staff, Dec 2004). See also summary in USA Today (26 Nov 2004), citing the "study by a team of health economists" (Frank Sloan, PhD, Jan Ostermann, Christopher Conover, Donald H. Taylor, Jr., and Gabriel Picone). See also the book, The Price of Smoking (Cambride, Mass.: MIT Press, December 2004). (Sloan is Director, Center on Health, Policy, Law, and Management, at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.)
3.) The cited $40 per pack cost refers to the monetary impact on smokers. But also nonsmokers are impacted; they are forced to help pay for the results of tobacco use.
"The costs to treat smoking are astronomical. People wonder why their health care costs and health care premiums increase every year. It's simply the cause of [caused by costs for treating] chronic diseases--often times caused or exacerbated by smoking—that we end up paying for," says T. J. Bucholz of the Michigan Department of Community Health, quoted by Tony Manolatos, in "Fewer smoke, revenue grows after state cigarette tax hike," Detroit News
4.) The Committee on Life Insurance Research, Society of Actuaries Study (August 2005), cites medical costs associated with secondhand smoke of about $5 billion and lost wages at another $4.6 billion. (See related article by Thoe Francis, "Study Tallies Annual Cost Of Secondhand Smoke" (Wall Street Journal, 17 August 2005))
5.) Frank A. Sloan, Donald H. Taylor, Jan Ostermann, Gabriel Picone, and Christopher Conover, The Price of Smoking (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, December 2004) (Subjects include: tabulating the cost; what is and is not known; smoking effects on mortality; smoking effect on personal health care, social security, and private pensions; cross-subsidies; life insurance impact; effects on morbidity, disability, and work loss; health effects on nonsmokers, etc.) (And see review by Hilary Smith, "The high cost of smoking" (18 November 2004)
6.) Susanne R. Rasmussen, Eva Prescott, Thorkild I.A. Sørensen and Jes Søgaard, “The total lifetime costs of smoking,” 14 The European Journal of Public Health (#1) 95-100 (March 2004)
7.) Elizabeth Johnson, Francesca Dominici, Micheal Griswold, Scott L. Zeger, “Disease Cases and Their Medical Costs Attributable to Smoking: An Analysis of the National Medical Expenditure Survey,” 112 Journal of Econometrics (#1) 135-151 (Jan 2003)
8.) J. L. Fellows, Ph.D., A. Trosclair, M.S., E. K. Adams, Ph.D., and C. C. Rivera, “Annual Smoking-Attributable Mortality, Years of Potential Life Lost, and Economic Costs-United States, 1995-1999,” 51 MMWR Weekly M (#14) 300-303 (12 April 2002)
Ann,
Here are two of the more interesting elements related to smoking...
1.)"The costs to treat smoking are astronomical. People wonder why their health care costs and health care premiums increase every year. It's simply the cause of [caused by costs for treating] chronic diseases--often times caused or exacerbated by smoking—that we end up paying for," says T. J. Bucholz of the Michigan Department of Community Health, quoted by Tony Manolatos, in "Fewer smoke, revenue grows after state cigarette tax hike," Detroit News
2.) The Committee on Life Insurance Research, Society of Actuaries Study (August 2005), cites medical costs associated with secondhand smoke of about $5 billion and lost wages at another $4.6 billion. (See related article by Thoe Francis, "Study Tallies Annual Cost Of Secondhand Smoke" (Wall Street Journal, 17 August 2005))
So far, the current research seems to indicate that the moron is you, Lucky Old Sod. Your refusal to read or acknowledge reality doesn't equal "I win!".
Aren't you lefty guys supposed to be the "reality based" ones?
Or is it like certain soft drinks that are "juice based"; meaning there isn't much actual juice?
Sgt,
Maybe if you were to actually READ something before posting you'd have a better grip on the reality of smoking's effect on our overall health costs.
Sticking up for your little buddy, Pogo, doesn't change the dynamics of the argument.
My father was in the insurance business for over 40 years and we had many conversations regarding health costs and how specific costs are effected by what "other" people do, and I have a number of friends who are doctors and triage nurses and every one of them will verify what I'm saying...they see it every day.
If you smoke, keep smoking...you'll find out the hard way.
LOS
Once again, you only filled out one part of one side of the equation, expenses related to smoking. However, the documents I provided already took those into account.
You haven't refuted them merely by posting more stuff on how much smoking-related disorders cost. Hell, you haven't even touched the issue at all. Your citations only prove that when considered in isolation, smoking is expensive (to the individual, to a company, or to a single insurer). And you have no answer at all for the economists cited in the NYTimes and USAToday, both of whom agree with me, not you.
According to Dana Goldman, director of health economics at Rand Corp., a non-profit research firm: "The dirty little secret of public health finance is that cigarettes are a very cost-effective killer. ...Living longer is great for society but a disaster for government programs."
When you fully account for income and expenses in total, including taxes paid in, fewer healthcare expenses due to shorter lifespan, unused retirement income, and unused elder care, smokers (past and present) currently save the state and federal governments, and private pensions, around $50.4 billion per year.
QED
P.S. Your father, the doctors and nurses you know, and you yourself are committing a fundamental error in economics. You only tally what you see in front of you. The French economist Bastiat always warned to pay attention to "What is Not Seen", for it is a large determinant of actual economic outcomes.
In my view, you are so wedded to the notion that smoking cessation must be cheaper for society than smoking (because it seems like it should be true based on your experiences and readings), you are completely blinded to a full and honest assessment of the actual facts, and a dispassionate review or discourse is therefore impossible for you.
Pogo,
Believe whatever you want, but the next time you talk to someone in the health or insurance industry, ask them if the poor health of smokers does or does not pass higher medical costs onto those who do not smoke.
Your theory that people who die at a younger age offsets the cost of those who linger for years on end, in the hospital or being treated, is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.
My wife's mother just passed away from lung cancer, brought on by smoking, after lingering for two years...and at a cost of over $400,000 in hospital, doctor and drug bills.
I'll leave it at that.
Re: Your theory that people who die at a younger age offsets the cost of those who linger...
LOS, My theory? Lordy, you do go on.
I have sufficiently demonstrated -including using government stats- the conclusion that smokers cost less in the long run than nonsmokers, even when including medical costs.
You have only demonstrated that
health care costs associated with smoking are high, a fact which is not in dispute by anyone, but that does nothing to refute my point.
For example, the $400K you mention is what folks in the nursing home spend in just a few years, when coupled with common maladies of superannuation like arthritis, pneumonia, or heart failure, given many MD visits and a few hospital stays.
The intellectually honest man would at a minimum agree that the facts might be different than you had previously believed. I have little doubt about your response, however. What we wish to be true or think must be true is quite false.
“It ain't so much the things we don’t know that get us into trouble. It’s the things we know that just ain’t so.”
Josh Billings.
Pogo,
I have no idea how you got on this new and improved slant of yours but my premise is fairly straight forward:
Smokers, because of their maladies and the expense of treatment, increase the health care costs of those who DO NOT SMOKE...because...many of the costs are passed along to others in the form of higher health insurance premiums and hospital expenses.
It certainly is not new...to those who actually read.
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