I got this as an essay question last year during testing.

"A patient, in the hospital because of heavy smoking, is trying to get tobacco companies to pay for his medical bills because he thinks that it is their fault that he is in the hospital because of their products."

A response to this was that the tobacco companies should not pay for his medical bills because that's just not the way it works. If you buy a car from a car company, and get into an accident, should the car company pay for your medical bills? No.

Do you agree or disagree with this response? Why?
My first obvious answer was to agree. Yeah why would they pay for your medical bills?

But when I talked to my dad about it, he had a different answer. He said that tobacco companies should pay for it because of how much nicotine that they put into it. They put in enough purposely to make it too hard to just quit therefore keeping you buying their products and attacking your health. Makes it so you can't really control yourself, making it... not your fault.

I'd say that he had enough information before he started smoking and probably knew what he was getting himself into so it should be his fault, but my dad did have a good point.

What do you guys think?