You’re going to be funding the expansion of the SCHIP program. It’s for “the children”! The Senate voted yesterday (the House already approved this bill) to add an additional 61 - cents to a pack of cigarettes to fund the SCHIP program.

According to the Heritage Foundation:

The compromise pays for the expansion with a 61-cent increase in the tobacco tax. Although politically popular, this funding solution disproportionately burdens lower income families (the population targeted for expansion). Also, raising the tobacco tax would reduce the number of smokers, which dries up the source of funding. Ultimately, an additional 22 million new smokers would be needed to fund the SCHIP expansion through the tobacco tax hike.[4]

The passage of this bill fits very nicely into the hands of those like Hillary or for all the Dhimmicrat Presidential candidates who are promoting socialized medicine. It’s one of those incremental steps needed to replace private medical insurance with government insurance. This incrementalism has been going on since the 1970’s with the creation of HMO’s which started the march toward socialized medicine. SCHIP will replace private insurance with government insurance:

By expanding coverage further up the income scale and to new populations, the compromise will undoubtedly erode existing private coverage. Numerous studies have attempted to measure the “crowd-out” effect. While exact findings vary, the studies generally agree that as public programs expand, private coverage declines.[2] Recent analysis by The Heritage Foundation finds that expanding SCHIP coverage to children in families with incomes between 200 percent and 300 percent of the FPL would lead to a 45–51 percent crowd-out effect.[3] For every 100 children made newly eligible, 45 to 51 of those children would lose private coverage that they have today.

This bill expands beyond “the children” and raises the income level and in reality is an expansion of Medicaid:

SCHIP was originally targeted at covering low-income, uninsured children whose families earned an income at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL). The compromise would raise that threshold to 300 percent of the FPL—covering families who earn $62,000 per year. It would also encourage government coverage for other populations such as pregnant women, parents, and childless adults. Moreover, the bill extends standardized benefits, making SCHIP operate more like Medicaid than private coverage.

Tennessee smokers need to really light up often since now they will not only be supporting this expansion but will also be funding the expansion of school funding. And don’t be thinking about going to a neighboring state to buy your smokes since law enforcement is going to looking for any Tennessee drivers re-entering the state with smokes purchased from other states.

Law enforcement has made it their priority to sit on the border today to watch for those illegally purchasing smokes in another state. How pathetic is that? I’m so glad our governor makes it his priority to catch smokers vs illegal aliens. 

Thanks go to both Tennessee Senators for voting for this expansion of the SCHIP program. Both Alexander and Corker voted to expand this program. There were 30 Republicans who voted to promote socialized medicine. They all should be so proud. Go here to see who else voted for this expansion.

Hopefully President Bush will follow through on his threat to veto SCHIP. 

Technorati Tags: SCHIP, Senate, Senator Alexander, Senator Corker, Tennessee