Analysis: Rendell health plan faces big battle
The escalating battle over Gov. Ed Rendell's plan to extend health insurance to 767,000 uninsured Pennsylvanians carries political dangers for both Democrats and Republicans in the Legislature.
For Democrats, there is the risk of voting for higher taxes in a year when they're running for re-election. Mr. Rendell's health insurance plan, called Cover All Pennsylvanians, or CAP, would be funded in three ways, and two of them are tax increases.
He wants a 10-cents-a-pack increase in the tax on cigarettes -- for a total tax of $1.45 a pack. That would generate $67 million a year for CAP, he says.
He also wants a first-time sales tax on cigars and smokeless tobacco, which would raise another $50 million a year. He said he was amazed when he learned Pennsylvania is the only state that doesn't tax those tobacco products.
The third part of CAP is to tap $267 million of the nearly $500 million surplus in the Mcare abatement fund. It was enacted in 2003 and gets its money from a 25-cents-a-pack tax on cigarettes. The fund helps doctors in the state pay for their malpractice insurance. Full article click Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.