Cigarette tax hike would help ease state’s Medicaid shortfall, leaders say

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5 thoughts on “Cigarette tax hike would help ease state’s Medicaid shortfall, leaders say

  1. This is worse than ‘beating a dead horse’. None of the ‘pros’ outweigh the ‘cons’. Revenue won’t go up because the desired result is prohibition. I think that was tried from 1919-1932. How’d that work out? Blackmarket, dangerous products. NO REVENUE. I’ve always found it interestingly ridiculous that booze is glorified, local beer production, ‘happy hours’, and now DORAs at the same time tobacco smoke in those venues is already prohibited. Drunk driving is a far greater immediate ‘health risk’ than the cumulative effects of smoking, yet alcohol excessive taxation seems to be ‘untouchable’. If anything, processed fast food poses a bigger ‘health risk’ to people of all ages. Regardless, ‘prohibition thru excessive taxation’ is a bad idea regardless of the designated lobby product. The average pack of smokes is already too cost punitive with existing taxation.

  2. Raising the taxes has no downside. If tobacco tax revenue dies go down, then most likely the Medicaid shortfall will go down with less smokers being treated, the economy will be doing better because less sick workers will be more productive.

    How is this “idea fatigue”? Maybe it’s really an issue of lobbyist money and that nobody is lobbying to make Hoosiers healthier. Even the healthcare Industry is making money off sicker Hoosiers.

    It looks like at least one Hoosier seems to have bought into the lie told by Brad Barret.

  3. How about a sin tax on ammunition that product causes a lot costs to the State’s economy considering all the damage it does to victim’s and their survivors , families and communities.

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