The Daily Background
| Even Republican voters oppose the GOP’s plan to deny health care to kids
by Arlen Parsa
Jonathan Singer of MyDD makes a good point when talking about how unpopular Congressional Republicans’ stance on expanding SRCHIP, a health care program for poor kids, is:
… [It is likely that] Republicans mean what they say when they offer their reasoning behind opposing the Democratic measure to expand SCHIP to cover more children — they are ideologically opposed to taking this approach. The problem for the GOP in this case is that their position is terribly unpopular, even with the Republican base.
Take a look back at the comprehensive polling commissioned on the American healthcare system by The Times and CBS News earlier this year, Americans support the idea of expanding SCHIP to cover all children (a proposal that goes even farther than that of either House or Senate Democrats) by a remarkable 84 percent to 11 percent margin. Even Republicans overwhelmingly support such a measure, 72 percent to 21 percent. A majority of Republicans, albeit a smaller one of 57 percent, support the government providing healthcare coverage for all American children even if it means that their own taxes would be raised. As I noted at the time, my assumption is “that an even higher number would register support for a plan that would just raise tobacco taxes, not impose an additional payroll tax or increase income taxes.”
Probably a safe bet, yes. The plan that Democrats are putting forward is that cigarette taxes be raised by 61 cents to cover the increase the number of children covered under the program, which President Bush has threatened to veto.
The alternative to this reasoning of course is that Congressional Republicans aren’t really all that opposed to the measure, but instead are just trying to kill this popular bill in order to deny Democrats the chance to say that they accomplished something. Sort of an opportunity where Republicans could look good by being bipartisan, but they’re scrapping that in favor of making Democrats look like a “do-nothing Congress.” I don’t know which is more likely to be true; Singer believes it’s the former, but I think it’s probably a combination of both that are leading them (well, Republican leadership in Congress anyways; moderate Republicans will probably break with their party on tihs) to oppose this bill.
Gov has been hiking cig. taxes for the past quarter century, bringing the cost from 50 cents to over $4.00 per pack, always to “cover health care costs”, yet that money goes directly into general revenues, instead. This tax disproportionately targets low to mid-income people.Smoking is a complex behavior that can’t be treated with punitive measures. 19% of the adult pop. smokes, and few people have ANY exposure to cigarette smoke. The most carcinogenic smoke is that which contains oil particles (your car). While smoking has declined, the incidence of pulmonary disease and childhood asthma have skyrocketed. Could be some clues there…Tax fast food/junk food instead.
As has become an American tradition, this tax disproportionately affects low to middle-income people, with a negligible effect on the rich.