Should smokers pay for treatment?
If you get sick because you smoke, should you be made to pay for your treatment?
New research says smoking could be costing the National Health Service 5 BILLION pounds a year - that's about twice the government's official estimate.
Cigarette smoking is the biggest single cause of illness and premature death in the UK - 109,500 people die from smoking related illnesses every year. So if you smoke, and it makes you ill, do you think you should you have to pay for your treatment?
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its not only the smokers that are a burden on the national health service its the drinkers who go out and binge drink in towns and citys in britain that cost the tax payer a arm and leg each year they should be made to foot the bill themselves but the right wing media being what it is tells us its the asylum seekers that are the real burden on the nhs usuall propaganda and spin
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I have no problem with smokers paying for their treatment as long as they are given all their tobacco taxes back first.
Tony Blair adimitted that tobacco tax far exceeds what it costs the Health Service to treat smoking related illness.
Regards
Mitch
Grangemouth
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Of course you should be made to pay for your treatment ? If not you , then who? And more important than that, why not you ? Why should the state pay for your desire to enjoy cigarettes?
As long as you were informed of the risks associated with it, it is entirely your decision and that means you need to accept future consequences of these actions.
Sheila
gallbladder disease
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Will this also extend to sportsmen and women who know the risks of injury?
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In addition to my #2, please add overweight people to the list. They really costs the health service money.
(Just being the devil's advocate)
Mitch
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And what about the drunks that litter our streets and clog up our ambulance and hospital services most nights of the week? Not only does their behaviour affect their own health, but it affects others around them when the fights break out. If you start making decisions as to who does and does not deserve to be treated then you need to also decide who has to contribute to the NHS. I have private medical cover and make no use of the NHS at all, yet pay for the NHS regardless. Ridiculous notion. The NHS was set up to treat everyone and that's the way it should stay.
Leanne
Hackney
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Being human carries risks. Risky activities results in accidents and dangers to health. Skiers break legs, people have car accidents, take drugs, drink alcohol and take thousands of other risks. They will all need NHS treatment. It would be too hard to draw a line. The other day my doctor entered in my notes that I was not interested in stopping smoking, when I had had no such conversation with him. I challenged him on it, and he gave me a card to ring the national helpline. He was more interested in me dying of heart disease and it not being his fault, then in actually dicussing prevention with me. Doctors could be more pro-active in preventative measures.
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Whoever came up with this ridiculous idea should be immediately removed from their job. It is a disgrace to expect smokers to pay for their own treatment and yet alcoholics and drug addicts are allowed treatment for free.
In any event, where do you draw the line? If smokers have to pay for treatment because it is self-inflicted, then surely everybody who is treated by the NHS should be refused treatment if it is self-inflicted?
Should two people who have a fight outside a pub be left to bleed to death?
Should treatment be refused to everybody in a road accident until it is discovered who is to blame and then only the innocent parties be treated...??
Should a rape victim be refused treatment in case she was "asking for it"...???
It is disgusting that this question should even be asked, let alone have an hour of a national radio programme devoted to it.
The NHS is free to all at the point of delivery, or it has to be free to no-one.
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There are fewer smokers in the uk than most of western europe and yet life expentancy in the UK is lower. I pay 100 euro per month health insurance in holland and they know i am a smoker. I would guess in the UK I would pay more than 100 pounds per month. now I would also pay tax to the NHS in my normal taxation.
To say that smokers cost the NHS from choice is just as rediculous as saying Parents should pay for having children - after all it is a choice and 100% all children cost the NHS.
To deny NHS treatment to smokers would be very hard to administer. Can a doctor prove 100% that you got your condition 100% as a result of smoking.
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Yet again the NHS, a service we all have to pay for is being used to persecute one group in society. A group that will pay over £8 billion in tobacco tax this year, £3 billion more than the £5bn cost quoted.
If anyone is serious about saving money in the NHS let's start will ending the free treatment of patients not born in the UK, ending the golden pensions of NHS staff who retire on an average pension of £17,000 a year plus a tax free lump sum of £51,000. Ending the 9 weeks sick leave entitlement for staff each year, used by many to create a 15 week annual holiday entitlement.
I doubt there are few out there who would want a private health system in this country but why not, if it is fair to exclude smokers from treatrment why not exclude those too poor to afford treatment, not fair is it.
The site vocalize.org.uk spells out the true cost of NHS and public sector pensions in the UK.
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Smokers (and I am not one) already pay taxes like the rest of us, so don't be silly.
Will the government be asking all public employees to pay to go to work...
Indeed, will we all have to pay more just for living; it seems like we do already. More tax, more local taxes, less services .. yet those that so called lead this country and public services get more and more money.. really good pensions and not usually held to account.
The question should be why is it that the NHS has not been made more efficient, although it still gets more and more money. Moreover, it has so many those volunteers, cancer patients are more likely to be treated through charities, the list goes on and on. Where is all that money going?
We are being led astray with the scapegoat argument.
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Please don't fret too much, the motorist will foot the extra money for the NHS with extra duty on fuel. We already pay for everything else!!
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Did I really hear an NHS nurse say on live radio that she advocates refusing treatment if it isn't paid for and just letting someone die?
It is quite remarkable how evil the anti-smoking jihadists have become.
Even if the BHF research is to be believed, and as part of the 'Smokefree Coalition' which will say or do anything to bash smokers, they will no doubt have presented the figures in the way which best benefits their agenda, smokers still pay four times that amount in taxes, and that is without taking into account their national insurance payments.
It's a ridiculous idea and a step on the road to a private healthcare system.
As for the nurse who came out with that disgraceful comment, I agree with the caller who said she should be struck off.
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Slighty off topic but what good would health insurance do for those people born with disabilities. Health insurance companies wouldn't touch us with a barge pole.
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The Nurse with the ignorant views is confusing money allocated to the government to the NHS with the extra cost of smokers. She should propose - if she is to have any credibility - that smokers come out of the NHS completely - and get a tax refund on money allocated to the NHS from their income tax and NI - yes some comes from NI. Tax from Cigarettes should be removed completely. She would then see that the NHS would still be short of cash - the cash comes from government. At the moment revenues from smoking are not ring fenced for the NHS - she should realise that whilst we're using the grey/black stuff in our chest that she should use the grey matter between her ears and lobby government to ringfence the billions in revenues from smoking for the NHS
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The NHS actually owes smokers £3Billion.The figures speak for themselves.I think if we breathalysed members of the BMA on a regular basis,we would begin to culture a smarter,less corrupt NHS.Please rid us of these old alcoholics that are trapped in denial as to the real problems of the NHS.
Smokers pay their way,I wish pre gnant women paid for their "moments in need"...Yours,
Renpax
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Smoking has unique physical properties that make it particularly loathsome. Of all the vices, its the most invasive. I cant walk to work without getting stuck behind some smoker and getting a good lungful of their smoke. At least if its some boozed-up tramp that Im stuck behind, then its just the stench of cider and urine that I have to put up with; and last time I checked, neither of those gave me lung cancer.
In terms of the direct questions raised on the radio show, I would have thought that the best way to charge smokers is add it to the cost of the products; just as the best way to charge motorists for the socio-economic costs of running their cars to is to add it to the price of fuel. (Of course, we already do both of these things; I guess that the show was asking should we charge them more? as well as should we charge them in a different way?).
But I cant help thinking that the debate missed some of the wider issues. For example, NHS costs arent the only smoking-related costs carried by the tax-payer. What about litter? One recent study found that smoking detritus accounted for 90% of rubbish found on Wales roads and pavements, and according to Keep Britain Tidy smoking related rubbish is now the UKs biggest litter problem, with cigarette litter reported to be found on 78% of our streets.
Its not just litter. What about the environmental cost of growing and manufacturing and producing and transporting cigarettes? I dont know, but Im guessing that the foam in the filter isnt a naturally-occurring product. How much is all of that costing us? Again, its not just the monetary cost thats important; and all to support a disgusting habit of no practical or positive use.
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Could I suggest whydoi, that you don't walk so close to the smoker in front? Cigarette litter is also a product of not having enough litter or rubbish bins available on the streets. I am not a smoker but the villification of this particular group of people has angered me for some time.
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If you charge smokers to have treatment, then you should start charging people for hip and knee ops who have damaged their bodies through extensive exercise. They choose to do the sports they do and therefore should pay.
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"Could I suggest whydoi, that you don't walk so close to the smoker in front?"
Maybe if they had better lung capacity then I wouldn't keep catching up with them...
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Whydoi, With respect - walk faster and get in front!
Are you by chance an ex-smoker?
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Fisrt of all, if the government are going to go down this road, the first thing they can do is stop their privileged position where they can smoke in bars in Parliament, hypocrites.
Secondly, As I read in a blog the other day, compare how many chief execs that Tesco has had in the last 20 years as opposed to the NHS. One a highly successful huge employer the other a bureaucratic basket case. The government keep changing the person in charge and never put someone with a background in medicine at the helm.
Thirdly the amount of money that goes into the NHS should be more than enough but as its management resembles something from the soviet era. no amount of money will ever be enough. Sack the multi tiers of bureaucrats and let doctors run the hospitals.
As a final point, If we start telling people, under the current system of funding the nation health, how to lead their lives, we run the risk of becoming even more stalinesq than we already are. For this kind of lifestyle management to work the NHS would have to go down the private medical insurance route where the premium would depend on your lifestyle. the good side to this is it would make immigrants have to take out insurance as well as British citizens. The down side is it would greatly penalise the poorest in society.
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"Whydoi, With respect - walk faster and get in front!"
I do; hence the fact that I only get *a* lungful of smoke.
But it's interesting that, in your opinion, the responsibility for [the ill-effects of] smoking doesn't lie with the smokers, but with the other pedestrians (who have to walk faster) and with the council (who have to provide more bins).
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Here we go again, lets all vilify smokers. Agree with 'jimmy-dean', yes, what about all the asylum seekers who have never put one penny into this country? We're happy to give it to those people, but not to the ones who actually contribute. As for polluting the air, the emissions which come out of heavy goods vehicles will get you if the cigarettes don't.
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Smoking is legal. So the side affects should be treated. If its that bad ban it.
Also does this mean speeding car & bike owners who crash and end up in hospital needed expensive surgical repairs should pay for their treatment? After all they were breaking the law when the crashed.
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Absolutely crazy - if smokers have to pay for healthcare then so do many hundreds of thousands of people who abuse their health (and this comes from a non-smoker):
Obese people, alcoholics, obsessive suntanners who burn to a crisp or develop skin cancer, people who have developed diabetes through poor diet, people who injure themselves doing stupid things or excessive exercise - the list is endless. Smokers may develop lung cancer but drink abuse can cause serious personal health problems (which also costs the NHS) as well as sometimes leading to violence, accidents through drink driving, verbal abuse etc.
Ever been in a hospital on a friday or saturday night and seen the beaten up drunks or the intoxicated teenagers who can't move? Or out in town at pub-closing time? Drink abuse is (in my opinion) a far more serious problem and it needs a lot more attention.
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TWOPAIR: "Also does this mean speeding car & bike owners who crash and end up in hospital needed expensive surgical repairs should pay for their treatment?"
If this initiative is adopted, your scenario is not only eminently plausible but highly likely in the future the way our government is heading.
Consider the scene. A biker lying in hospital, almost every bone in his body broken, as an NHS accountant asks him if he is able to pay £X,000 for his treatment (the NHS can offer a very competitive interest rate for finance).
If he says no, he hasn't the money ... let him die or remain broken and in agony.
Not exactly what I'd call health CARE.
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Once again we are losing sight of what the NHS is ment to be.FREE.
Any organisation funded by the tax payer,wether they smoke or not,has already been payed for by the working British public(especially smokers as they all ready pay more tax).
To turn round and start charging people for health care because they become ill because of smoking,which is still legal in our country,would be the begining of end of the NHS and another step for our country down the toilet of becoming more and more like the good old USA.
If the powers that be want people to quit smoking,then they should use the powers to ban productuion and sale of cigarettes.
We have forgotten what the NHS is supposed to represent.
JGC
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It is not my fault that the medical insurance (tax on cigarettes) that I have paid for and non smokers have not, has not been utilised to assist the NHS research lung cancer and nurse patients affected by smoking. I and fellow smokers will have paid in billions over the years that could easily have been used to offset any costs.
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Mods - can you not use direct quotes from other messages here.? I have tried twice and the posts disappear!
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Most cases of lung cancer death, close to 90% in men, and 80% in women are caused by cigarette smoking. There are several other forms of cancer because of smoking as well: cancer of the oral cavity, pharynx, larynx, esophagus, bladder, stomach, cervix, kidney and pancreas, and acute myeloid leukemia. The list of additives allowed in the manufacture of cigarettes consists of 599 possible ingredients. When burned, cigarette smoke contains over 4000 chemicals, with over 40 of them being known carcinogens. So you can what a small stick like this can do so much harm to your body.
Source: cancer stats,
chemotherapy facts
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I actually think it would be a good idea to make smokers pay their own medical bills because that way it might persuade them to stop or atleast reduce the number of cigarettes they smoke per day. The other option would be to ban smoking completely, of course this isn't quite possible as it would cause a public outage. I honestly don't understand why people allow themselves to get addicted to smoking and drugs when they know there are so many harmful ingredients added to the product.
Linda
gallbladder symptoms
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