Oregon “SCHIP” Like Bill Clobbered at the Polls
Written by Sam on November 8th, 2007
Like Beltway Democrats, Governor Ted Kulongoski and his legislature wanted to broaden eligibility for Oregon’s “Healthy Kids” Schip program to 300% of the federal poverty level. They would also allow all families to opt in, regardless of income, though higher earners wouldn’t get subsidies. Again like Congress, Salem intended to pay for the expansion with cigarette taxes, which would increase to $2.02 from $1.18 a pack. That would be one of the highest state tobacco levies in the nation.
Democrats couldn’t dredge up the three-fifths approval required for a tax increase in the legislature, so they kicked the expansion over to the ballot. And already, Measure 50’s defeat is being blamed on $12 million in advertising by Big Tobacco. “What happened was, the tobacco industry bought the election,” Governor Kulongoski declared yesterday.
We’re surprised the Governor thinks voters in his left-leaning state are so easily gulled–especially in a contest between “healthy kids” and cigarettes. More persuasive is the notion that voters didn’t want to pass a state tax increase to finance a health-care expansion that Congress might soon pass, along with buckets of federal dollars. But most likely, voters understood that a tax increase on cigarettes is still a tax increase, and a highly regressive one at that. Only about 20% of Oregonians smoke, and most of those are lower income.
They may also have figured that to the extent tobacco taxes reduce smoking, they will soon not yield enough revenue to pay for ever-growing health costs. An analysis by William Conerly, a member of Governor Kulongoski’s own Council of Economic Advisors, found that a straight Schip expansion funded by a tobacco tax was unsustainable, with costs exceeding revenues by $115 million by 2017.
That last paragraph is something that the Socialists on Capitol Hill never mention, but is common sense if you think about it for a minute or two. Raising taxes on cigarettes will eventually produce less smokers so what do we do at that point, when there are no longer enough smokers to fund the program and most of America’s kids are then addicted to the gubmint health care? The answer is easy. It will be another whopping tax increase on all of us, not just those who smoke.
You have to give the land of Hippie-dom some credit for having a little bit of sense anyway. They rejected this measure two to one.
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1. Didn’t anyone chastise you for using disgusting racial slurs like “gubmint” last time I pointed it out?
2. I’m still going to laugh in your face when your kid gets leukemia and your insurance policy drops you. Then your “waiting time” will be infinity unless you want to get down on your knees and accept one of those gubmint handouts.
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LOL. What are you going to do, Publius, send me to my room without dinner?
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Publius, wishing leukemia on someone’s kid and laughing with pride is way worse then spelling government a different way. Nuff said.
P.S. Are you trying to accuse my daughter of having TB?
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Sam — I guess only someone from the South would think that withholding food is appropriate discipline. I’m sure glad that liberals run the child protection bureaucracies. Even the Romans and the Nazis gave their prisoners food!
Jason — About as classy as making a campaign issue out of your opponent’s 4 year-old daughter being treated for brain cancer outside of the district rather than in the district?
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So you accuse Sam of a racial slur and then use said slur. Then you stereotype an entire group of people. All I have to say to you is, “Doctor heal thyself”.
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“Raising taxes on cigarettes will eventually produce less smokers so what do we do at that point, when there are no longer enough smokers to fund the program”
Less smokers also means lower average health care costs…
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Neither Sam nor David knows how to properly use “less” and “fewer”. Are there ANY blogs where people are able to communicate their ideas with a level of literacy that we expect from middle schoolers?
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I was quoting him.