英语初级听力材料：吸烟的代价

大家都知道吸烟有害健康，但是到底吸烟会付出怎么样的代价呢?下面这篇听力来回答你。还有更多的精彩内容在应届毕业生考试网等你来。

The Cost Of Smoking

People give all kinds of reasons for why they started smoking, but none of them are good — not even supposedly altruistic ones.

While some claim that you’re actually saving our overburdened healthcare system money in the long run by smoking because it reduces life expectancy, it’s nowhere near a watertight argument.

First of all, you’re certainly not doing your family and friends a favor by deliberately lowering your life expectancy. In fact, your family will have to absorb the losses incurred when you miss work due to smoking-related illnesses. Second, there is a lot of debate over the best way to measure the economic costs of smoking.

Every study is based on different assumptions, and uses different data and methods. For example, should you measure the cost of smoking by looking at the cost of treating major illnesses like lung cancer and heart disease, or should you also measure the cost of less serious illnesses? Should you take into account the fact that people who live longer also pay more taxes and insurance premiums? Should you look at the overall cost to the healthcare system, or at the cost per individual?