Hacker News Reader

Comment by swah | Hacker News Reader

I never understood why everyone is against smoking if it saves those corps money in the long run.

Slowly dying from cancer is expensive. Dying from a sudden stroke induced by a lifetime of lethargy isn't.

I believe even smokers who die early from disease are cheaper in the long run compared to those who end up dying much later in life.

I think the same idea holds true for the obese because they tend to die early, as well.

Being old and sick is incredibly expensive. Living healthily enough to get to be old and sick is a monetary drain from insurance companies' perspectives.

> Dying from a sudden stroke induced by a lifetime of lethargy isn't.

Lethargy has never gave anyone a stroke

But drinking 20 coffees a day for staying awake working 80 hours a week for your startup while you could easily have a normal job, that grants you a normal, quite life, had.

because the last couple of years suck when you're dying from the things caused by smoking.

While smokers or the obese might have a smaller total lifetime healthcare cost, the timing of the costs is likely a factor. As the bulk of healthcare costs typically come from end of life care, the cynic in me explains the concern/anti-smoking campaigns in the workplace as an effort to shift that large cost to a time when the person is a part of the public healthcare system and off the private insurance policy.

Maybe I'm wrong here, but I think many of the people responding to you missed the sarcasm.

Lung and throat cancer are no joke, I would rather save them money then die from it.

Because we value lives over corporate profits?

I wouldn't paint that generalization with so broad a stroke. Very few people truly value lives 100% of the time over corporate profits. If we truly did that, we would never turn a blind eye to many of the actions that corporations take while so many of us own their stock in retirement portfolios.

Live, quite unfortunately, is rarely so black-and-white.

I think you missed the sarcasm (or I am too optimistic about GP ?)

I honestly can't tell anymore. Poe's Law has gone from "lol" to "this covers virtually everything" lately.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com