by Barbara Stanley

Created on: January 02, 2009

Should smokers bear the responsibility for the health risks of cigarette smoking? In many states, they are doing so. Mississippi was the first state to win hundreds of millions of dollars from a class action lawsuit against Big Tobacco. The result was the making of then State Attorney General, Michael Moore, and his team of lawyers, mega millionaires. Of course, the state won millions of dollars for the Medicaid system to help pay the cost of smokers receiving medical care under medicaid. A funny thing happened on the way to the doctor's offices. The Medicaid wallet had a large hole in it. Almost as soon as the money was received from Big Tobacco, it was spent on everything but health care. Just a few years later, Governor Barber Haley began cutting Medicaid benefits and dropping many people from the rolls completely. Tobacco companies raised the price of cigarettes to cover costs of advertising that warned people not to buy their product. The state placed a tax on cigarettes that was to add to the Medicaid monies available for the health care of smokers. This seemed reasonable to me until I realized that the money was not being used by the people paying it.

I haven't heard about a tax on alcohol to offset the cost of treating liver disease or the many ailments associated with alcoholism. Where is the tax on beer, whiskey, gin, and vodka to pay for the funerals of their victims? Where is the tax on alcohol that will be used to treat the victims who spend weeks in hospitals around our country? If we tax alcohol enough to make it out of the reach of the common man, maybe we will spend less on law enforcement, correctional officers, and shelters for the abused family members of alcoholics. I could go on, but you see my point.

What about the people who engage in extreme sports? If a person wants to engage in idiotic behavior that results in a trip to the hospital in an ambulance, so be it. Should the state pay his bill when he willingly participated? Shouldn't he bear some responsibility? What of those who grossly over-eat because food taste so good they cannot resist? If an obese person can claim his largess as a disability, shouldn't the alcoholic cease to work because his sickness is disabling? Do you believe that we should make crystal meth legal in order to tax this scourge on mankind and add a Medicaid health care tax?

When we really take the time to list all the ways that mankind engages in risky behavior,we realize that singling one out is ridiculous. The

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