Should Smokers Receive Free Healthcare?

Estimates suggest that smokers could be costing the NHS over £5 billion each year so is it fair that smokers receive free healthcare for smoking-related illnesses?

No – Katie
People who choose to smoke are completely aware of the health risks. The dangers of smoking have been well publicised in marketing campaigns and even on packs of cigarettes so anyone who does smoke knows full well that it can cause serious illness. If despite the warnings, people still choose to smoke, they must be responsible for the consequences and this should include paying for their own healthcare if they become ill.

Smokers are a huge burden on the NHS – why should tax payers who live healthy lifestyles be penalised by having to pay higher taxes to fund treatment for smokers? The NHS doesn’t have enough money to treat everyone and it isn’t fair that people who have become ill through no fault of their own should go without treatment in order to pay for smokers. If the NHS didn’t have to spend so much money on smokers, they would be able to fund research and treatment in other areas.

Many smokers who do receive treatment for a smoking-related illness don’t even give up smoking! I’ve seen patients stood outside hospitals smoking – so any money spent on making them better is just a waste as inevitably they are going to carry on smoking and possibly get ill again. Perhaps if smokers knew they would have to pay for their own medical treatment it would provide an extra deterrent to smoking in the first place.

Yes – Liam
We are very lucky to have the NHS in the UK and one of the great things about the NHS is that everyone is entitled to free treatment regardless of their lifestyle choices. To ask smokers to pay for treatment would mean radically changing the founding principles of the NHS. This would not only put smokers at risk but could lead to changes for other groups of people too. For example, if we decide smokers should be charged for treatment, then the next natural step would be charge people who drink alcohol or eat unhealthily too. Where would this stop? No-one should be afraid of seeking medical treatment because they are worried about the potential costs.

People say that smokers are aware of the risks when they smoke and this is true but a skier knows that they risk breaking a leg when they go skiing – should they therefore be made to pay for treatment if they have an accident?

The cost of treating smokers is often cited as an argument against giving smokers free healthcare but it’s important to remember that the Government receives billions of pounds in tobacco taxation. If they allocated this money directly to treating smoking-related illnesses then I suspect that smokers would be covering the cost of their own healthcare anyway.

Rather than constantly attacking smokers, we should continue to provide treatment to everyone who needs it and then help them to give up smoking as part of their recovery.

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