[blackbetty59]

They don’t want to operate on people who smoke tobacco, but they will gladly operate on fat people, or diabetics who eat cake. They’ll operate on men who take their sexual organ and put it into the fecal hole of another man. They’ll operate on women who cut off their breasts, and take testosterone. They’ll operate on CEOs who drink their lunch, and the toney pot-smoking yuppies with whom they golf. They’ll operate on men who take estrogen, and wear wigs. But these pillars of virtue will absolutely NOT operate on someone who smokes tobacco. lol

[RetSignman]

[But these pillars of virtue will absolutely NOT operate on someone who smokes tobacco.}

But if you have never smoked in your life and have an elevated pulse, they have no problem prescribing Amiodarone (Pacerone)and then end up with lungs that sound like you’re a two packer a day.

[markomalley]

They don’t want to operate on people who smoke tobacco, but they will gladly operate on fat people, or diabetics who eat cake. They’ll operate on men who take their sexual organ and put it into the fecal hole of another man. They’ll operate on women who cut off their breasts, and take testosterone. They’ll operate on CEOs who drink their lunch, and the toney pot-smoking yuppies with whom they golf. They’ll operate on men who take estrogen, and wear wigs. But these pillars of virtue will absolutely NOT operate on someone who smokes tobacco. lol

Addressing everybody so far who has said something along the lines of "But doctors operate on _______"

I wouldn't necessarily get too upset with doctors on this. Even though I have absolutely NO use for medical insurance companies, I don't think I'd even get horribly upset with them on this either.

I say this because the medical payments market is so tightly regulated by both state governments and FEDGOV that they may have no choice in this. It is politically acceptable for government to have regulations allowing insurance companies to mitigate risk based upon smoking, but:

• If they tried to mitigate risk based upon sexual behaviors (higher disease possibility with some behaviors), there would be screams of "homophobia" (a made up word);
• If they tried to mitigate risk based upon babies being ripped from a woman's womb, there would be screams of "misogyny";
• If they tried to correlate premiums based on zip code (I'm sure there are differences in conditions like diabetes based upon zip code), I'm sure there would be screams of "racism";
• If they tried to correlate premiums based on body fat percentage, there would be other discrimination claims;
• and so on.

And if they refused to provides services based on those particular lifestyle choices, then the screams would be infinitely louder. Politicians are not willing to take that screaming.

Fact is, they are allowed to do this with smokers because it's politically correct...they aren't allowed to do so with other bad lifestyle choices, because those choies haven't similarly been vilified for generations.

This would all be changed if individuals were responsible for the consequences of their behavior. As it stands, those consequences are assigned to a third party (the one who actually pays the medical bills).