Democrats Embrace Smokers to Pay for Health Programs

The dirty little secret: the more people who smoke, the more money Democrats will have to fund health programs!

Great study from the Heritage Foundation on the SCHIP program:

22 Million New Smokers Needed: Funding SCHIP Expansion with a Tobacco Tax
by Michelle C. Bucci and William W. Beach
The Heritage Foundation

Members of Congress seeking to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to cover children from wealthier families are exploring new ways to pay for it. The Senate Finance Committee generally has agreed to reauthorize SCHIP for five years with a $35 billion expansion funded by an increase in the federal tobacco tax by 61 cents per pack.[1]

While a tobacco tax is a politically popular funding source, it has several significant shortcomings:

• A tobacco tax disproportionately burdens low-income Americans, lacks long-term stability, and ultimately results in significant shifting of health care costs onto others.
• With the number of smokers already declining, a tobacco tax would further reduce the number of smokers, thereby eroding the funding source.
• To produce the revenues that Congress needs to fund SCHIP expansion through such a tax would require 22.4 million new smokers by 2017.

Rather than making SCHIP dependent on increasing the number of smokers, Congress should refrain from narrow government program expansions and work on a broader strategy for improving access to affordable, private health insurance for all Americans--including children.

Who Would Pay?

Increasing the tobacco tax is an inequitable way to fund SCHIP, because a large portion of the burden would fall on poor and low-income families and the relatively young. Around half of smokers are in families earning less than 200 percent of the federal poverty line (FPL), so increasing the tobacco tax would burden the families in the income class that SCHIP and Medicaid are trying to help.[2] Furthermore, smokers are more likely to be poor or low-income than wealthy.[3] (See Chart 1.) With an expanded tobacco tax, SCHIP expansion to higher income levels would largely be funded by lower income persons, those who can least afford it.

Talk about stupid! You have to encourage smoking by the same low income groups who you intend to benefit with a health program? Only a Democrat woudl think that is a good idea!

Video Update: Do Your Part and Light Up! It's "for the children."

Thanks Tannerball, for finding the video!