Smoking Death Rates: Rich vs Poor. You'd Be Surprised at The Outcomes.

How do the smoking death rates compare for the rich vs poor?  If you are a smoker, rich or poor, are you more likely to die younger than even a poor nonsmoker?  The answer is yes.  That's  what  long term research suggests.  If you're a man or a woman,  rich or poor, if you smoke, you will die prematurely compared with your nonsmoking colleagues.  So says long term studies done by the Scots.

Read the whole article. Some very telling details about how to think about the poor uninsured. Perhaps all this talk about being poor making you die sooner is washed up. Perhaps just a liberal myth for the bleeding hearts. Perhaps the futility attitude has blinded their reality. Perhaps the higher death rates of the poor have absolutely nothing to do with social/economic/political/religious/ or even academic variations of class warfare.

Perhaps it's just something as simple as smoking. Since poor people smoke more, more poor people die sooner. That's what this new long term data suggests. Perhaps the greatest way to create health equality between rich and poor, men and women is not to increase funding for health insurance. Not to increase works programs. Not to increase education funding. Not to fight crime. Perhaps the most effective way to decrease the health gap is to get poor people to quit smoking.

That's not to say that these programs things don't have other benefits. It just may not be a health benefit. It looks to me, reading this article that the poorest nonsmokers live longer than the wealthiest smokers.

That, to me, is compelling evidence that the best way to close the gap between the health of rich vs poor is to get poor people to quit smoking. Independent of doing any other intervention.

It's the smoking stupid. Perhaps we are being intellectually dishonest when we pound on the drums of economic inequality leading to poor health outcomes for the walking, uninsured poor. Perhaps the greatest determinant on the health of the poor is not their education or their crime. Maybe, just maybe, it's that they smoke more often.

What we need to do is make smoking terribly expensive for the poor. Price it out of their income. We need to make access to quitting therapies free for all. We need to prevent young poor smokers from starting. This is not rocket science.

Increasing access to health care insurance doesn't save lives. In fact, we know that people live longer during recessions, probably because they can't afford their cigarettes and all the toxic side effects of their medications.

How does money prolong your health? It doesn't. When poor nonsmokers outlive wealthy smokers, the argument is immediately shot down. Lifestyle choices prolong your health. Government intervention wont. Health insurance wont. Doctors wont.

Being poor won't kill you. Being poor and smoking will. Just as it does the wealthy. And why throwing more money for access to health care for the poor won't make them any better off unless and until they quit smoking.  And if you're poor you can even get Chantix for free.  UPDATE:  Chantix lawsuits, here we come.