I thought we'd adopted a Piscatorial Pursuits Philosophy that "stupidity should hurt." Therefore, patients with ailments caused largely or wholly by stupidity should have to pay more.

Aunty, I don't think anyone said smokers are evil. That appears to be something you read into Dan's earlier post. More accurate to say that smokers are drug addicts; just that their drug happens to be legal, whereas some drug users are addicted to drugs deemed illegal. Biochemically they're all the same in that regard. Legal/illegal is a social legal value independent of the biological and chemical attributes of the respective substances. So a smoker is no more evil than a meth head. Both are substance abusers who are hooked. And as Dan points out, the 400,000 US smokers who die from tobacco use each year make the meth deaths a drop in the proverbial bucket.

Sg