One more reason to love TEXAS

[joshua]

1,1 cents a stick ! I wish....

Up here in the frozen wastes of Canada we pay about 55% tax on cigars. So that $10 smoke become a $15.50 smoke before you even buy it !!

Even ordering from supplies in the USA can be tough, most I've emailed have said they won't ship to Canada. Also tobacco taxes are handled by provincial goverments so I can't even order form other provinces.

They still won't stop me from enjoying cigars !

Yeah but we don't have national healthcare in the US.

[cigar no baka]

Thank God. The last thing I want is the idiots running our government to have control over my healthcare. Now, if they want to have some kind of funding for the poor or elderly (can anyone say Medicare/Medicaid?) I have no problem with that, but no fucking way do I want the government to control what healthcare I can and can't get or when I can and can't get it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[joshua]

Thank God. The last thing I want is the idiots running our government to have control over my healthcare. Now, if they want to have some kind of funding for the poor or elderly (can anyone say Medicare/Medicaid?) I have no problem with that, but no fucking way do I want the government to control what healthcare I can and can't get or when I can and can't get it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think in canada they can go to a pay clinic anywhere they want, the government provides but doesn't require they use it. But anyway, thats one reason I heard tobacco taxes in canada are high because it balances out with any of the healthcare costs.

[Amanda]

America's current patchwork private/public health care system is at the proverbial swirl before the drain. Clearly, there are flaws to the Canadian system, and any national health care system would have some definite liabilities, but the longer Americans delude themselves into believing the current system is the least bit sustainable, the larger the health pandemic of tomorrow will be.

Even the big bad government argument isn't effective since countries with national health care plans have administrative costs as much as 80% lower than our system's has. I'll resist the temptation to lecture on....lol.

[cigar no baka]

It is sustainable. THERE IS NO RIGHT TO HEALTH CARE!!! Just another "right" that we're going to "write" into the constitution, and the libs will not be happy until we're in the same boat as most of Europe - extremely high taxes, an overwhelming amount of government control, high unemployement. low growth, and a business environment that stifles investment and makes businesses flee to other countries to avoid the place.

[Amanda]

"There is no right to health care."

Spoken like someone who has adequate health care coverage. It should speak volumes that the other nations of the world who don't offer health care as a right are Third World countries teeming with uncontrolled disease. As two million new Americans are removed from the ranks of the insured every year in our "sustainable" system, it's only a matter of time until the house of cards tumble.

Your economic justifications for the self-destructive status quo also ring hollow. The biggest deterrant to business growth in America is the need to finance every employee's Cadillac health care plan at a rate of $3-4 per hour or more for every employee. Especially for smaller businesses, that onerous cost burden with its double-digit inflation annually cancels out any perceived advantage America may have over Europe and Canada with our lower tax burden.

Continuity of the current system will produce a mixture of two undesirable outcomes. a) Businesses will set up operations elsewhere on the globe (both in developed economies and the Third World) so they're not saddled with the annual health care costs of thousands of dollars per employee that are not imposed on them in most other countries of the world. And b) of the businesses that continue to operate in America, fewer will be able to afford the 15-20% annual growth in health care costs and will elect to drop coverage for employees.

It's hard to understand how desperate things will have to become before apologists for our current floundering health care system will be willing to concede their error of their fantastical free-market worldview. As the ranks of the uninsured expands across the tracks from politically-ignored and disempowered blue-collar neighborhoods and into the suburbs, the political pressure for national health care is likely to become to overwhelming to ignore....just as the political pressure for government-financed prescription drugs for seniors grew unstoppable.

[Corona Gigante]

It is sustainable. THERE IS NO RIGHT TO HEALTH CARE!!! Just another "right" that we're going to "write" into the constitution, and the libs will not be happy until we're in the same boat as most of Europe - extremely high taxes, an overwhelming amount of government control, high unemployement. low growth, and a business environment that stifles investment and makes businesses flee to other countries to avoid the place.

Sounds familiar...

"Where did this idea come from that everybody deserves free education, free medical care, free whatever? It comes from Moscow, from Russia. It comes straight out of the pit of hell. And it's cleverly disguised as having a tender heart, [but] it's ripping the heart out of this country."
~Debbie Riddle
Republican State Representative
for Tomball (a suburb of Houston)
but probably not a cigar smoker.



I'm with Amanda on this one. Despite her crack about my being her father. I grew up with socialized medicine (in England). The "health care system" in this country is a national shame.