Eric Craft – 6/20/07

This page was last updated on June 20, 2007.

Let smokers fund health care; Eric Craft; Beaver County Times; June 20, 2007.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“Even though I do not believe in socialized health care, there is a way to make it work.”

[RWC] Can someone name a socialist program that’s ever worked over the long term?

“Out of America’s 300 million residents, about 75 million still smoke, and we are on average paying at least $20 per carton in taxes.”

[RWC] According to the American Heart Association, the figure is 46 million. Further, according to data on infoplease.com, cigarette consumption has been dropping since 1980. Mr. Craft wants to base his funding proposal on taxing a product whose consumption is declining.

“If the federal government were to take the $20 to $40 a week that is paid out by 75 million smokers away from the states and out of the pockets of crooked local and state politicians and put it into market funds and merely draw the interest off of those funds, it would not only pay for the health care of smokers, but it will pay for everyone else’s health care as well.”

[RWC] I wonder if Mr. Craft bothered to do any math.

With a combined average fed/state tax rate of $1.44 per pack, total revenue using 2002 consumption figures would be about $30 billion per year [(420 billion cigarettes / 20 cigarettes per pack) x $1.44 per pack]. In comparison, healthcare spending in the U.S. during 2005 was about $2 trillion. That’s about 67 times the cigarette tax revenue.

FYI, even using Mr. Craft’s erroneous figures doesn’t work. 75 million smokers x $40 per week x 52 weeks = $156 billion. That’s only about 16% of total annual healthcare spending.

“I’m pretty sure that all that smokers would ask for in return is for government to stop with the oppressive smoking bans and let the market decide where smokers can and cannot smoke, which is the way that it should be in a free country anyway.

“This would make everyone except crooked politicians, insurance companies and health Nazis happy. Everyone would have health care and government would leave smokers alone in bars.”

[RWC] Here’s another detail Mr. Craft didn’t address. Cigarette taxes currently fund non-healthcare programs. Does Mr. Craft believe those programs would be cut back? The truth is other taxes would be raised to make up for the tax revenue diverted to healthcare.

Finally, I’m convinced the smoking bans on private property have nothing to do with health. It’s simply another exercise to increase government intrusion into our lives. As I’ve written in previous critiques, the reasons cited in editorials and letters for banning smoking on private property simply don’t hold up under scrutiny.