Herald Review. Chivaggo Illinois, 6 de mayo de 2012

Raising taxes on cigarettes is justified
May 06, 2012 5:00 am • By the H&R Editorial Staff

IF ILLINOIS could potentially save thousands of lives and help ease the budget crisis, most residents would be in favor of that solution.
Unless it involves paying more for cigarettes.

One of the aspects of Gov. Pat Quinn’s plan to reform Medicaid is to raise the state’s tax on cigarettes by $1 per pack. The other part of Quinn’s proposal is to cut some of the Medicaid benefits paid to providers such as hospitals and doctors and to provide fewer services. It’s a complicated issue, and while we applaud Quinn for making a proposal, there are a lot of details to be considered, including the negative impact on hospitals and doctors if Medicaid reimbursement rates are cut.

The cigarette tax increase would bring in nearly $700 million — including federal matching funds — to help close the $2.7 billion Medicaid shortfall.

But Quinn is arguing that the health benefits will reap savings in the future. His thinking is that raising the price of cigarettes gives smokers incentive to quit and could deter young people from starting. Since there’ll be fewer smokers, the costs of treating smoking-related diseases will decrease.

The Illinois division of the American Cancer Society estimates that about $1.5 billion of the state’s $14 billion Medicaid budget goes toward treating smoking-related diseases such as lung cancer and emphysema. The Cancer Society says that if the cigarette tax were implemented, 73,000 smokers would give up the habit. Frank Chaloupka, an economist at the University of Illinois at Chicago, estimated that number at 60,000 smokers.

Whatever the estimates, it’s clear that if the price goes up, the number of people smoking will decrease. Ultimately, that will result in fewer smoking-related diseases and over the long term could lower the cost of health care.

It’s admittedly a long-term strategy, and there are other consequences. A tax hike will obviously bring in less money if more people quit smoking, so the funding may not be as reliable as Quinn believes.

The current Illinois tax on a pack of cigarettes is 98 cents, placing the state 32nd among states. However, some local governments impose an additional smoking tax — in Chicago it’s 68 cents and in Cook County, it’s $2. The lowest tax in the nation is in Missouri, which charges 17 cents per pack. That raises legitimate concerns about Illinois smokers crossing the border in order to buy their cigarettes. Experts counter, however, that the overall benefits of fewer people smoking outweigh any revenue lost to neighboring states.

Price obviously has an impact on the number of smokers. In Illinois, it’s estimated that 18.5 percent of the adult population smokes, which ranks 22nd in the nation. In Missouri, which has the lowest cigarette tax rate, 23.1 percent of adults smoke, which ranks sixth in the nation.

Cigarette smokers also contend they bear an unfair burden of taxes, and some of them advocate an increased tax on alcohol.

Generally, we don’t favor increased taxes. One of the issues we have with state government is that it tends to spend every dollar it collects in revenue, and then some. The cigarette tax increase faces a tough road in the General Assembly, which is good at shooting down ideas but weak at solving problems on its own.

But the combination of increased revenue to help the state’s Medicaid system, improved health and eventually lower health care costs is hard to ignore.

Tomado de:

http://www.herald-review.com/news/opinion/editorial/raising-taxes-on-cigarettes-is-justified/article_8c7c8268-9737-11e1-8b6a-0019bb2963f4.html