Tobacco Pack Targets Kids Health

Missing from most news reports on the debate over the State Children's Health Insturance Program (S-CHIP) is one reason why getting an override on the president's veto will be tough: tobacco money.

Tobacco campaign contributions, that is. The legislation pays for expansion of the children's health program with an increase in tobacco taxes, by increasing the levy from 39 cents to $1 a pack.

Problem is so many members of Congress take tobacco campaign contributions. Overall, the industry has sunk nearly $25 million into federal elections since the 2000 elections, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Nearly 80 percent of that cash went to Republicans. (Indeed, President George W. Bush himself took more than a quarter million from tobacco interests for his two presidential elections.)

One of the leaders of the tobacco pack, so to speak, is Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who has taken nearly half a million dollars--$482,000--in campaign contributions from tobacco interests. McConnell is one of the major Senate opponents of the legislation.

Yes, tobacco interests are a homegrown interest in Kentucky. But so are kids without health insurance. In Kentucky alone, 157,996 kids would qualify for S-CHIP under the proposed expansion of the popular program, according to the nonprofit group FamiliesUSA.

McConnell's work opposing S-CHIP on behalf of tobacco interests prompted Public Campaign Action Fund to create a web ad showing children selling lemonade and emptying their piggy banks. They are hoping to save and bundle enough money give in the form of campaign donations for Sen. McConnell so that he will pay as much attention to them as he does to his big campaign donors.

Of course, McConnell isn't the only one in Congress beholden to tobacco interests. As the day approaches for the vote to override the president's veto, watch very carefully. You will be able to see who lawmakers consider to be their true constituents--campaign donors or kids who need health insurance.

Comments

[geneb5]

A Washington Post editorial today addressed some of the arrant misinformation--often spread by tobacco interests--about the tobacco tax:

"[T]he President's Cancer Panel [endorsed] an increase in the federal excise tax on tobacco . . .

"[A]s the President's Cancer Panel noted, while the new tax would fall more heavily on lower-income smokers, 'tax increases also result in greater reductions in smoking among this population, with the dual effect of shifting the tax burden to higher-income smokers.' This is not some rogue group; its three members, appointed by Mr. Bush, are LaSalle Leffall, professor of surgery at Howard University and chairman of the board of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation; Margaret L. Kripke, executive vice president of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center; and cyclist and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong.
. . .

"Some 1.9 million children alive today would not become smokers, and 1.2 million adult smokers would quit. The administration argues that because tobacco taxes are effective in reducing smoking, the increase would not produce enough to fund SCHIP after the first five years. That's true -- but it's an argument for the tax, not against it."

Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/16/AR2007101601817.html

[rwoodsathome]

Doesn't it even dawn on you that to fund this SCHIP 'expansion' would require millions of new smokers? The tobacco companies are only doing your bidding by working to hold down the price of the product that is to fund the expansion.

Economics tells us that as the price of a product rises, consumption is effected - normally negatively. Raising the price of smokes will reduce the number of smokers (good) and tax revenue from smokers (bad). The same revenue that is dedicated to the expansion. Another unfunded liability?

The people you want to insure don't smoke. The people you want to tax you want to stop smoking thereby reducing revenue. This makes no sense.

[NABNYC]

We should not be funding specific programs by raising taxes on cigarettes. If someone wants to essentially eliminate smoking, which is a worthy goal, they should just assess taxes of $20/pack, and put that money into the general fund. By using the taxes from cigarettes only for medical costs, it creates a truly bizarre system in which doctors are making a killing and buying summer homes from huge lump sums of money paid to them from some general state tobacco collection system. It's like funding the schools with taxes on gambling. There is something wrong with setting up a system in which the basic needs of the citizens may only be funded by "sin" taxes.

I would much prefer a rich person's tax to pay for health care. Why not tax 70% of all income over $250,000, and use that for healthcare? Some guy making $20,000/year who is unfortunate enough to be a smoker is instead being robbed to provide children's healthcare. He probably can't even afford to go to the doctor himself.

And I don't support smoking. I'm just against targeting this small group of people, the smokers, who are generally not the richest people anyway, and having the society keep beating them up. Let's beat up the rich people instead. Let's tax the things that only rich people can afford, like expensive cars, yachts, jewelry, and use that money to pay for health care.