Litigation
Feb. 4, 2002
Junk Can Be Dangerous to Your Health
Forum Column - By John F. Banzhaf III, Reports that smoking cost the American public more than $100 billion a year - much of it paid by nonsmokers in the form of inflated health insurance premiums and higher taxes in order to cover people under Medicaid, Medicare and veterans' benefits, etc. - triggered a number of corrective measures to shift more of the burden from nonsmokers onto smokers. People now wonder whether a recent Surgeon General's report that obesity annually costs almost as much as much as smoking, and dozens of times the cost of the Enron scandal, will precipitate similar measures to make the obese pay their fair share of these costs.
By John F. Banzhaf III
Reports that smoking cost the American public more than $100 billion a year - much of it paid by nonsmokers in the form of inflated health insurance premiums and higher taxes in order to cover people under...
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