>That pose problem here in Canada, where the health care system is free to every citizen. Smokers cost a lot in health care. So we have to make some though decisions because of them: do we increase the already high taxes or we live with a health care where it takes over 6 months to have a heart operation and where the majority of doctors don't take new clients?
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SNIP

That REALLY is a load of crap, Sylvain.

Sure, I agree that smoking is bad. But added costs to health care??
Some have calculated that smokers who contract lung cancer - a small minority of smokers, by the way - die faster and younger, actually saving the system money. Since the large bulk of health care costs occur in a person's last stage of life, dying faster IS much cheaper.

Should we then work some scheme to "handle" obese people too??

Should we do the same for heavy drinkers??

Should we declare that anyone over 70 who is hospitalized more than nn days should just be sent home to die??

Then who should be next, just so that taxes can be kept low???? Red-heads, because they appear, statistically, to get sicker more often?... People who engage in dangerous activities?... etc.?

Accessibility costs governments and corporations tons of money. Should we just ignore handicapped people... or maybe we should just 'help' them croak too.

Smokers are (today's) pariah, and as such we have become THE target for everything that is wrong with the world and mankind and we have become the object of full-scaled persecution. It's so easy to blame things on one group - as long as one is not a part of that group!!!

By the way... almost anyone who has not benefitted from our health care system feels strongly that it is not needed and a waste of good money.
Most change their tune radically once they or a loved one contracts some serious problem and they actually experience the great care supplied, all the while knowing that home foreclosure and debt collectors will NOT become a part of their life afterwards.
Fortunately there are far more healthy people than there are sick people. So this attitude regarding the cost/value of health care will always prevail, which is a sad fact.