Increased Cigarette Prices to Benefit CHIP

A consensus towards an anti-tobacco campaign was reached on Tuesday, 10 July 2007, between the Republicans and the Democrats over an extra 61 cents per pack of cigarettes. The objective behind this exercise is noble twice over – first it would lead to raising a whopping $35 billion over the next five years, which would in turn, enable supporting and expanding the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), all at the cost of the smoker.

Ever since CHIP came into being almost 10 years back, it has been successful in insuring over 6.6 million children from families who do not have access to Medicaid. This is the biggest one-time funding expansion it is slated to receive.

Basically, what this means is that the tax the government has been charging per pack of cigarettes would go up to $1 from the current 39 cents. This is a staggering 156% increase in tax. As the man who first put forward this 61 cent hike, Gordon Smith, Republican Senator from Oregon, put it, “It really does come down to a choice between children and tobacco.”

He further said his idea behind proposing the hike was two-fold – get people to cut down on smoking and use the revenue that is generated from smokers to promote health care. The move will be fine-tuned over the next week.

There has been a major anti-tobacco rally of late and it has gained momentum and encouragement from people worldwide. The move to hike tobacco taxes by 61 cents in fact went through by a margin of 59-40 in the Senate, a definitive indicator of the popularity associated with the need to discourage smoking. It is amazing to note that 11 states have adopted the drive to increase tobacco taxes this year.

President Bush adds that the CHIP expansion definitely goes beyond helping helpless and needy children. He says that this program is about bringing awareness and encouragement to people to make use of government healthcare facilities. This program is also far more structured and streamlined in terms of who all will avail this benefit starting from the income groups. P

arents who will have access to this facility are pregnant mothers and all other parents will be listed under other programs in Medicaid. William Corr of the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids adds that the new measure will increase a steady decline in the number of child smokers as well as people in other age groups. And time will tell.