If smokers die early, don't they save money? i.e. less years on Social Security or Medicare. If you get lung cancer, you tend to die in a year or so. You don't lay around in a nursing home for ten years having someone changing you diapers every couple of hours. Plus, smokers already pay heavy taxes for their vice.
I really would like to see an accounting on that some day.
I’ve said in the past that a great debt is owed to smokers for the advancement of medical knowledge due to the range of ailments that are a consequence of smoking. It would be interesting to see what a full accounting would reveal.
Smokers don’t all die early. Smoking contributes to high blood pressure and to strokes. Those people are the ones who lay around nursing homes needing 24 hour a day care for years, my mother was one of them. COPD also requires expensive long term care my father was one of those.