Posted on 05/28/2005 9:42:26 AM PDT by SheLion
A coalition of religious and community groups will launch a drive today to put universal healthcare on the 2006 state ballot, in a proposal that would raise the cigarette tax to buy coverage for more people and would require all but the smallest Massachusetts businesses to cover their workers.
The latest on punitive action against smokers in Massachusetts for your information and dissemination:
"A coalition of religious and community groups will launch a drive today to put universal healthcare on the 2006 state ballot, in a proposal that would raise the cigarette tax to buy coverage for more people and would require all but the smallest Massachusetts businesses to cover their workers.. Under [Uxbridge Democrat state Sen. Richard] Moore's similar proposal, the state would add 50 cents to the $1.51 per pack cigarette tax, a move that might raise as much as $150 million a year.
Much of that money would be used to expand MassHealth, the Bay State's Medicaid program.... Nevertheless, the leaders of the healthcare campaign say there is a moral and religious imperative to make sure that every citizen is covered. Eddly Benoit, a church elder at Dorchester's Temple Salem Seventh Day Adventist Church, said that up to a fourth of the members of that congregation lack health insurance."
I watched my brother-in-law die of emphysema. He was 25 years older than my late husband, so I think he was 78 then. He had quit smoking years before, but it was too late. It was a horrible death. It is awful to feel that you are suffocating.
My aunt is 84. She has been smoking since she was 25. She has emphysema. She coughs all of the time. She has to sleep with oxygen on. She still smokes. She has almost died of pneumonia. She has to use inhalers all day. Sometimes she has to use oxygen during the day. She has trouble breathing, but she can't quit smoking because she is so addicted. She has had breast cancer.
Not everyone who has smoked or who smokes will have emphysema or lung cancer. Some people are more predisposed to getting cancer than others. We just never know. That is the scary part.
Well, hey, not all nurses are like that angel of death!!!! She killed your Malamute!!! Let me at her. I have a 3 1/2 year old Malamute/Husky/Lab mix. If anyone ever hurt Harm, they had better run pretty fast. I would not kill them, but I would hurt them pretty badly.
That woman was nuts! Good thing you got rid of her. I guess she was talking of injecting air into an IV. How crazy can you get.
Don't judge all nurses by her. I am a real sweetie pie, at least that is what all my former patients said. ;)
I am glad you recovered from your illness.
Thanks to the Tobacco Settlement to which smoker's who pay taxes on cigarettes are paying 110%.....not Big Tobacco and not the government, but the smokers!
And I can just scream when I hear lawmakers wanting to raise the taxes again. What the hell are they doing with all our tax dollars? I wish they would start on someone else, and that's for sure.
That is just exactly right. All the more reason to live and let live.
My ex was having chest pains at 38 years old. In the ER they did all kinds of tests. They walked in saying, "well the good news is you are not a smoker." Little did they know he had been a smoker since he was 13 or so and was at that time up to 2-3 packs per day, and was quite of smoker of other things for 15 years as well. (before I ever met him)
This subject just gets me so angry. There is just soooo much more to it than the "real or imagined" health issues.
With my aunt, I am not sure. With my cousin - no.
I am sorry for the loss of your husband, I am sure it was very difficult for you.
Psssst...they already have. Soon it will be against the law to be over weight. They have already begun to go after the fast food industry etc.
After that will be the sleep factor.
Oh I know. But I couldn't believe what Fox News had on today. A blurp that obesity death numbers aren't so high after all.
That actually be obese is a GOOD thing. I almost fell off of my chair!
Thank you. Yes, losing a spouse is very difficult. However, losing any loved one is very difficult, as you know.
Me too!
More than you. LoL.
All aside, I smoked for 18 years, quit for 15 years, and started again after my death experience.
Reference my earlier post, I had the heart of an eighteen year old in my later 40's, which impressed the Doctors to no end.
Not one bit of scar tissue to be found!
Perhaps I should go on a media rampage dictating the choice given to us to smoke, or better yet to frazzle the anti-smoking zealots with my story.
I had an ex boss and good friend who when checked at his time of death, had advanced emphysema.
He never smoked, nor did his emphysema cause his death.
He plowed into the ground at 150kts in his T-33 at an airshow which produced 128 flags in the ground where body parts were found.
He was in his late '60's and died gracefully within the scenario he loved the most.
Damn, living life to it's fullest sure can be fatal.....eventually.
I'm going to dump a load of laundry now, in my state of the art MayTag washer, while I wash dishes in my automatic dishwasher, as soon as I fix my tether for my Husky who complacently stayed in my yard when he was optioned to go free.
D@mn, I just can't get myself to righteously forgo the rights of smokers to do what they choose to do legally.
Call me a nut.....
I did not see that, but I know that a news release said that as one gets older, being a little bit overweight is a positive in living longer.
Some in African nations would not consider obesity a bad thing.
They could sure use it over there!
Happy contentment perhaps is a factor in living longer?
Just a thought.
It's not just leftist liberals who want to thrust more government control on us. Plenty of people who consider themselves "conservatives" (even religious conservatives), are supporting such Nanny state ideas.
Some are demanding that they get it....
At a cost of course.
I was trying to find something that I wrote 8-10 months ago to copy and paste for you but I can't find it right now. I was watching Tucker Carlson and his guest was quoting all this "new" data regarding "deaths from obesity." I was so appalled that I wrote a page about it.
What was so appalling you ask? He was reciting the same "death statistics" from the anti-smoking campaign. He did not even TRY to alter them. I had been doing research on the anti-smoking campaign at that time so all the numbers were fresh in my mind. I sat there with my mouth hanging open...I could not believe it.
That extra bit of weight gives an older person some additional back up in case of a severe illness, I think.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.