Dear editors:
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
President Clinton’s Health Care Proposals to target tobacco users, again, to pay for the cost of national health care, is also way off base. The need to stop the waste and fraud in our current Health Care/Insurance system should be the major concern, not punishing adults who choose to use tobacco. Tobacco usage does not cause STDs, broken bones, AIDS, pregnancy, mental disorders; in short, it does not cause all the health problems, so should not be made to pay for all of them. Tobacco users pay more for all of their insurance, including car insurance, and now they want us to bear the burden of a national health insurance? I’ve never known anyone who has been in a car accident because he or she was “under the influence of tobacco.”
If the push is on to ban everything that might be bad for us, i.e., risky behavior, all fast food restaurants should be closed, ski lodges should be shut down, bungee jumping should be stopped, TV, radio and books should all be banned and most of all, get rid of all public and private transportation. We can all walk; remember, a horse and buggy can be very dangerous in the wrong hands.
