“I will always worry about you,” my mother recently – unapologetically – said to me over the phone.

She reminded me (for the third time since I moved to New York City – I’ve lost track how many times since I graduated) to get health insurance through NYU or my new job. “You can’t (physically) afford to not be covered.”

I’m very aware that my frustration is palpable when I answer, “Yes, I know mother”

It is difficult to tell her that I can barely (financially) afford to be covered either.

My mom’s s concern over my health started from as far back as I can remember. A “Thank you for not smoking” sign still hangs in her kitchen. She crocheted the capital, bright red letters when she was pregnant with me for one purpose: so visitors who smoked would know to smoke outside.

(When I was old enough to talk, she also gave me a button that read the following: “Kissing a smoker is like licking an ash tray.” I wore it around with pride.)

When I was older, I learned that this sign kept some of our family and friends from visiting the house. But it kept them from smoking around me too. It also kept my dad from smoking in my vicinity. Even so, I can still remember that smoky campfire tang that clung to him when he came home from work; I remember it clinging to me after I hugged him.

For many like my mother, the news in the ’70s that second-hand smoke was considered just as much of a cancer risk as directly inhaling was less an “aha” moment than a confirmation of a truth people had long assumed: smoking is bad for you and for others around you.

As of late, however, doctors around the country – specifically those from Mass General Hospital in Boston – now have identified another smoking-related threat to people’s health: third-hand smoke – a term being used to describe invisible yet toxic gases and particles that cling to smokers’ hair, clothing, furniture, the inside of cars and all other smoking areas they occupy.

This toxic residue includes heavy metals, carcinogens and radioactive materials.

These Boston experts published a study in the January issue of the journal Pediatrics on how these toxins pose a risk to infants and children. As research continues, increasingly more studies are proving that there are comparable risks to adults.

Dr. Jonathan P. Winickoff, lead author of the study and an assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, explained that third-hand smoke is what people smell after a smoker leaves the room.

“Your nose isn’t lying,” he said. “The stuff is so toxic that your brain is telling you: ‘Get away.’ ”

When I came across this study, it made me consider my mom’s “motherly instincts” to protect my health, and President Obama’s push for universal health care.

In a recent speech June 11 in Green Bay, Wis., he explained that his plan would allow people to “shop for a healthcare plan, compare benefits and prices, and choose the plan that’s best for you. None of these plans would be able to deny coverage on the basis of a pre-existing condition, and all should include an affordable, basic benefit package.”

This sounds like a great plan for people who (like me) cannot afford insurance.

And yet I cannot help but wonder if this “one shoe fits all” sort of system is really fair, especially when it is proven smokers have, and cause, greater health risks than nonsmokers.

(In addition to the affects caused by second- and third-hand smoke, the latest July 2009 assessment by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services stated that a smoker is at 14 times greater risk of lung, throat or mouth cancer, four times greater risk of getting cancer of the esophagus, and two times greater risk of suffering from a heart attack and bladder cancer than a nonsmoker.)

Doesn’t it seem like nonsmokers will be physically and financially paying for smokers’ bad habits?

In the past, when cigarette taxes were hiked, consumption went down. A few examples:

• Cigarette sales fell 18 per cent in North Carolina in 2006 after the tax was raised from a nickel to 35 cents.

• Connecticut increased its tax to $1.51 from 50 cents in 2002. Since then, per capita consumption of cigarettes has fallen 37 per cent.

• New Jersey raised its tax to $2.40 from 80 cents in 2002. Smoking has dropped 35 per cent.

• California raised its cigarette tax to 87 cents per pack in 1999 but hasn’t changed it since. Smoking is down 18 percent since the tax increase.

From a soon-to-be (temporarily, mom) uninsured nonsmoker’s perspective, cigarettes need to be made illegal. Either that, or a continual and steady hike in cigarette taxes should be mandated. Otherwise, I’d rather struggle to pay for my own insurance. At least that way, I know what I’m paying for.

Originally published Sunday, Aug. 23, 2009