@Sklivvz Regarding skeptics.stackexchange.com/a/37397/104 :

1) Considering that opponents of smoking cite economic factors as reasons to discourage smoking, it's only fair that supporters of smoking are allowed to cite economic factors.

2) I don't want government policies to be based on false claims. I want it to be based on true claims.

3) Labelling a group of people as an economic burden is often used to vilify a group. We should be very skeptical of claims that a group of people are an economic burden.

4) The most prominent case of government prescribed euthanasia was Nazi Germany's Aktion T4. Comparing a bad public health policy with an act of genocide is overdoing it.

@AndrewGrimm did you mean to ping @Oddthinking?

@AndrewGrimm I was reading down your list, planning to explain how I agree with each, and then I got to the 4th point, and went "Whoa! This is the cause of the disconnect."

The policies of Nazi Germany never entered my head, and it certainly was not intended to be a reference to that. I can see your objection.

Pondering how to make the original point without accidentally invoking the Holocaust.

[Largely thinking out aloud] The "cost of health care" is complicated. Obviously we want to lower the cost, but not at any price. If everyone stopped having children for 50 years, the cost of health care would drop dramatically, and rapidly approach zero.

So, a better measure is "cost of health care per person", which is the measure I am attributing to Devine.

But even that is short-sighted, because optimising it promotes having a society of lots of young healthy people, with no-one who requires constant care. Older people (and disabled people) should be eliminated. I've not seen the 1976 film Logan's Run, but I understand that is the basic premise behind it.

Now, I think most people would understand that as morally wrong, but this is as far as Devine's thinking seems to go. I want to highlight that.

@AndrewGrimm I certainly don't want to vilify smokers as an economic burden. I want to vilify commentators and tobacco-shills who paint smoking as an economic benefit. I would rather pay the health care costs to keep the 80-year-olds around, than watch them die of tobacco-related diseases in their 70s.