Hacker News Reader

> the libertarian in me thinks that people should be free to do what they want to their bodies provided it is not at the expense of society as a whole

society is burdened in the 50% chance scenario that they develop lung cancer, alongside other medical problems which smoking exacerbates as well as being a contributory factor to others.

View on HN

People die of something. It costs no matter what that is. So there's some extra cost since they're dying sooner (maybe?) It's more complicated than 'Hospital costs!' since those are pretty unavoidable no matter how you die?

We generally don't shoot people in the head when they've been diagnosed with lung cancer so society doesn't save any money there. So the extensive treatment required to treat lung cancer is greater than somebody not getting treatment because they don't have lung cancer.

To be more succinct, there's a large difference between a person requiring lengthy treatment for lung cancer(hospital + morgue) before ultimately dying compared to somebody dying due to old age(morgue).

Nobody dies of 'old age' any more. They die of something that was under treatment in general. That's all.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com