Advocates against smoking and for more health care for the uninsured, joined by lawmakers and the new state comptroller-elect and attorney general-elect, are intensifying their push for a $1-a-pack hike in the cigarette tax, but Gov-elect Martin O?Malley is still not buying.
Healthy Maryland Initiative, a broad coalition of hundreds of medical professionals, faith groups and unions, persuaded 80 members of the new General Assembly, along with Comptroller-elect Peter Franchot and incoming Attorney General Doug Gansler, to endorse the plan during the campaign.
The tax increase has been proposed the last four years.
Supporters say a hefty spike in the cost of cigarettes will especially deter smoking among price-sensitive teenagers.
“It will save lives,” said Dr. Martin Wasserman, a former health secretary and currently executive director of the state medical society, which hosted Monday?s news conference.
Vincent DeMarco, president of the Maryland Citizens? Health Initiative spearheading the drive, said the taxhike could raise more than $150 million.
The bulk of the money would be spent expanding eligibility for Medicaid health insurance to the working poor and increasing community health centers. The rest of the money would go for programs to discourage smoking.
Mayor O?Malley rejected the plan during the campaign because the new tax represented a dwindling source of revenues.
On Monday, O?Malley spokesman Rick Abbruzzese said the incoming governor continues to oppose the tax increase. “We share many of the same goals” for increasing coverage and affordability, he said.
“We?re focused on building a professional and competent state government, and are focused on making government operate more efficiently,” Abbruzzese said, which may generate cost savings to fund programs.
“We think we can allay his concerns,” DeMarco said.
“Everyone is sensitive about supporting new taxes” during a campaign, Franchot said.
But “once [O?Malley] looks at the issue from a public health perspective,” he may change his mind. This source of dedicated revenue is not like raising the gas, income or sales taxes, which would be “a heavy lift” for a new governor and Legislature, Franchot observed.
Gansler said he would also “vigorously pursue those who sell tobacco to minors.”
