This issue infuriates me and it always has. The (legal) choices made by adults should not be looked at as a source for rectifying our government's fiscal irresponsibility, regardless of what that choice is and regardless of whether or not that choice has been deemed a health risk.
The thing is, it's easier for the gubmint to get away with "sin taxes", because the victims of the taxes can be easily demonized. Using the tax system as a social engineering tool is what our politicians do best, and it's consistently a failure---not to mention morally abhorrent and just generally, naturally fukkin WRONG. I mean, wake up, people...in what universe is it morally acceptable for a cabal of government officials to decide that they can play the puppet masters by manipulating the tax code? Yes, they've been doing it for years, but what surprises me is how many citizens seem to have no problem with it...until it affects them.
Smokers should not be picking up the bill by paying these insane taxes. It's comparable to a huge increase on 'junk food' for people who are clinically obese. They don't need junk food to survive. If someone is already obese, eating junk food is certainly a health risk for them. If those people want to get fatter and destroy their own health rather than just lose weight, then those people should pay a high tax on junk food. Hopefully, this high tax will prevent these people from eating junk food and it will make them healthier citizens while also providing additional income at both the federal and state levels.
See how silly that sounds when (basically) the same premise is applied to clinically obese people rather than smokers?
I've got to say, as much as I vehemently despise the welfare state, including the health welfare state, you have to admit that, as long as people are doing things that cause health risks, and those risks are being pushed onto the taxpayer via the welfare state, it makes sense that people who take these health risks pay, rather than the ones who do not. Optimally, it would be a single-out program, where anyone on medicare/medicaid would be tested for various risky behaviors, and would then be charged a fee to supplement their government health coverage. But this is obviously not logistically feasible. IN a perfect world, the real solution would be to disband the welfare state---but until that happens, the next option on the list is for certain consumer goods that carry particular health risks to be taxed in order to directly pay for the costs that their use brings to bear on the healthcare-welfare system. Yes, of course, tons of people who don't use government healthcare insurance schemes will get unfairly taxed, but perhaps, just maybe, this will help illustrate how f'd up the whole healthcare-welfare system is. At the same time, how about some tax
breaks for going to the gym?
The obvious problem with SCHIP is that these taxes on risky goods do NOT go directly to pay for their health effects in the healthcare welfare system. So it's the worst of all worlds.