Raise cigarette tax right away

The American Heart Association strongly supports Gov. Pat Quinn’s proposal to increase the cigarette tax as part of his plan to stabilize Illinois’ Medicaid system.

The current Medicaid system is not fiscally sustainable, but letting badly needed health services disappear cannot be allowed. Numerous changes are necessary in order to dig out of the program’s fiscal hole, but we can’t just cut our way out of this mess. A $1-a-pack cigarette tax is low-hanging fruit we should take right away.

The state needs money, and a cigarette-tax increase is the best and quickest option available to raise a significant amount of those necessary funds. The critical component is the 100 percent federal funding match for the tax increase, doubling the $337.5 million projected from cigarette tax revenue. It is also well-demonstrated that raising cigarette taxes in other states dramatically reduced health care costs to those residents.

We support Gov. Quinn’s proposed cigarette tax increase and implore our state legislators to support it as well. We cannot let vital health programs, programs that millions of residents depend on, cease to exist. That is why the time for a cigarette-tax increase is now.

Dr. Timothy Sanborn

Illinois Advocacy Committee

American Heart Association