SALEM, Ore. -- Oregon cigarette smokers would cough up an extra 60 cents in taxes per pack to expand health care for the poor under a ballot measure submitted by state Rep. Billy Dalto (R) and three lawmakers from both parties.
If the initiative makes the November 2006 ballot and wins voter approval, it will boost Oregon's cigarette tax to $1.78 per pack, among the highest in the nation. Oregon's $1.18-per-pack cigarette tax ranks as the 13th-highest in the nation at the beginning of the year, according to the Federation of Tax Administrators.
"We can solve a significant share of the uninsured problems with this investment," Dalto told the Salem Statesman Journal. About 600,000 Oregonians lack health insurance, and the state recently experienced the steepest surge of uninsured people in the nation because of severe cuts to the Oregon Health Plan, according to the Journal report. The program serves the poor and disabled. The proposal, dubbed the Family Health and Wellness Act of 2006, would reduce the number of uninsured by one-third, Dalto said.
The extra taxes would guarantee health care for all of Oregon's 106,000 uninsured children and put 25,000 more people on the Oregon Health Plan. Money also would expand health-insurance subsidies for working families, restore full dental care to those on the Oregon Health Plan and help people quit smoking.
Supporters hope to enlist support from the health-care industry and businesses, which stand to gain financially because hospitals must treat poor people in their emergency rooms even if they can't pay the bills. That drives up health-insurance costs for employers.
"I think in the long run, it benefits the economy," Dalto said.
Mark Nelson, a lobbyist for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, said his company needs to study the initiative before commenting.
Bruce Bishop, who represents the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems, scheduled a meeting with Dalto to review the measure. The hospitals and health insurers unsuccessfully pushed the 2005 Legislature to re-enact a 10-cents-per-pack cigarette tax that voters overturned when they rejected the Measure 30 tax package in early 2004. "We might well support a 60-cent (increase); I just can't say," Bishop said.
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