News

Midlands Voices: Tobacco tax hike could help many

Friday, March 15, 2013
Omaha World-Herald

By Dale Hansen, M.D.

The writer, of Lincoln, is governor of the Nebraska chapter of the American College of Cardiology and a member of the Nebraska Medical Association.

Increasing the tax on cigarettes and tobacco products in Nebraska would reduce smoking, improve health, save money and produce revenue for critical health care needs; strengthening our local first-responder programs, among others.

Nebraska lawmakers are considering legislation that would raise the state’s tax on cigarettes to $1.36 per pack. The idea of increasing Nebraska’s tax on cigarettes and tobacco products is supported by the Nebraska Medical Association, in alliance with a coalition of numerous health care organizations.

Sen. Mike Gloor of Grand Island introduced Legislative Bill 439, a bill that would increase the cigarette tax from 64 cents to $1.36 and generate an estimated $66 million in new revenue per year. Nebraska’s current tobacco tax ranks 38th nationally. After a 72-cent increase, Nebraska would be 25th and even with Iowa.

The last time the Nebraska Legislature raised the cigarette tax was in 2002. LB 439 also would increase taxes on the other tobacco products from 20 percent to 31 percent of the wholesale price, resulting in an extra $1.1 million in revenue.

LB 439 would divide the new revenue among the following: the Health Care and Human Service Provider Rate Stabilization Fund, the Tobacco Prevention and Control Cash Fund, the state’s Health Care Cash Fund, EMS/volunteer fire departments, cancer research funds and the general fund.

These allocations would stabilize reimbursement of service provider rates within Medicaid, behavioral health, the Children’s Health Insurance Program and services for the aging; assist tobacco users to quit smoking and keep kids from starting; fund programs that would improve the health of Nebraskans; and strengthen first-responder programs in our local communities.

Every year 2,000 children in Nebraska become daily smokers and 2,200 Nebraska adults die prematurely from smoking. LB 439 would save lives by decreasing youth smoking by 9.6 percent, keep 9,400 kids in Nebraska from becoming addicted adult smokers, assist 7,800 current adult smokers in quitting, reduce the number of smoking-affected births to 1,700 over the next five years and save 5,100 Nebraska residents from premature smoking-caused death.

Tobacco use costs Nebraskans $537 million in health care bills and $134 million in Medicaid costs. This includes workplace productivity losses, premature death and direct medical expenditures.

Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the adverse health effects from cigarette smoking account for an estimated 443,000 deaths, or nearly one of every five deaths, each year in the United States. More deaths are caused each year by tobacco use than by HIV, illegal drug use, alcohol use, motor vehicle injuries, suicides and murders combined.

Users of tobacco economically impact both smokers and non-smokers. Smoking-caused health care costs for smokers and non-smokers are $9.64 per pack.

Passage of LB 439 would accomplish the following goals:

>> Discourage people from smoking and save lives.

>> Save the state millions of dollars by decreasing the occurrence of smoking-related illnesses, prospectively helping to fill part of Nebraska’s budget gap.

>> Improve the overall health of Nebraskans.

As advocates for physicians and the health of all Nebraskans, we urge Nebraska’s state senators to pass LB 439.

http://www.omaha.com/article/20130315/NEWS0802/703159967/1677

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