Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 8, 1993 TAG: 9301080413
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
RAISE TAXES ON HEALTH HAZARDS
LEGISLATORS, in Roanoke Wednesday for a public hearing on the state budget, probably couldn't believe their ears.The audience cheered - for a tax increase. For a major tax increase, on tobacco and alcoholic products sold in Virginia.
Legislators had better believe it.
In Richmond, the tobacco industry reigns supreme. Outside of Richmond, citizens recognize the absurdity of Virginia's lowest-in-the-nation 2.5 cents-per-pack tax on cigarettes.
It is a rate that, owing to cigarette-makers' clout, hasn't changed since 1967 - when it was lowered (!) by 3 cents. In contrast, many states have raised tobacco taxes significantly, and are putting the revenue to good use for their citizens.
In the state capital, legislators are wined and dined by those with an interest in keeping high their profits on booze. Outside the capital, there's support for a tax increase on alcohol.
The call for raising the state's tobacco and alcohol taxes (to at least match the federal level) came at the budget hearing from Cabell Brand of Salem, chairman of the state board of health. The health board made the same recommendation to the 1992 assembly, to no avail. Brand's proposal would produce an estimated $200 million a year in new revenue for Virginia, which he would like to have dedicated to improving public-health services.
We're not sure about earmarking such new taxes for one purpose. But Brand is unquestionably right about this:
Virginia budgets in recent years have been captive to federally required spending for Medicaid. Gov. Wilder's mid-term budget proposals call for an additional $61 million for Medicaid. While this spending is necessary for more than 300,000 indigent state residents who are Medicaid-eligible, it does nothing to address the health needs of more than 1 million other Virginians, many of them working poor, who have no health-care insurance or who otherwise are left out of the state's health-care system.
These Virginians - many of them children - ought to be able to turn to public-health departments throughout Virginia for, at least, basic, primary health care, including preventive care. Keeping them from getting sick in the first place could significantly reduce government spending on Medicaid or Medicare in the future.
But for at least eight years, the state health department has not received adequate funding to provide its services to all who need them. For example, 40 percent of Virginia children are still not fully immunized against diseases by the age of 2.
During this period, the health department's budget, as a percentage of overall state spending, actually has shrunk - despite astronomical increases in the cost of providing health care and the growing demands for public-health services. Currently, public health gets a puny 1.52 percent of the state's general funds.
At the public hearing Wednesday - which, incidentally, drew the largest attendance of any in the series held around Virginia - Brand told members of legislative money committees that the public health department needs more funds to do its job. "Where," he asked, "do we get this kind of new money? You know where it is, and we know where it is . . . from tobacco and alcohol increased tax revenues . . . ."
The cheering that followed was not just for the additional revenue that could be raised - although most people at the hearing were there looking for more taxpayers' money. It was a reflection of common sense:
Use of tobacco and alcohol accounts for nearly 40 percent of health-care costs today, much of which must be paid by taxpayers, thereby squeezing out available funding for other government activities.
Brand's proposal would raise the state's cigarette tax to about 24 cents a pack. It would double the tax on booze. Stiff increases, to be sure.
We've little faith in the assembly's courage to enact them. But perhaps this will be the year legislators decide to do well by doing good - raising an extra $200 million-plus and tackling a pair of major health hazards at the same time. When the tobacco and alcohol lobbyists come crying this year, lawmakers should remember the cheers in Roanoke.