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The orange line

I’m all for expanding health care coverage and giving more kids health insurance, and believe me when I say I understand that gap between not qualifying for Medicaid and not having enough money for private coverage.

But I just read that the increase in funds required by the bill (just vetoed by Bush) would be covered by raising the tax on cigarettes to a $1 per pack. A whole fucking dollar! I’m not even a smoker and this outrages me.

It doesn’t seem fair to have cigarette smokers carry the burden. Shouldn’t health care coverage for our citizens be a shared responsibility? Are cigarette smokers somehow responsible for all our uninsured children? What insane logic is this?

What this says is that someone like me, who doesn’t smoke but has an uninsured child (this is a lie to make my point, because ry is covered under my ridiculously expensive insurance at work, but he could just as easily not be covered), isn’t responsible in helping pay for my boy’s health coverage. Yet the single guy next door who chainsmokes and has no kids is supposed to do it? Isn’t it kind of my job to pay for my own kid? I made him, he’s my bed, and now I’ve got to lie in him.

Hmm. I should watch my use of mixed metaphors.

Anyway. So while I support the purpose of the bill, I’m not a supporter of making the tarlungs pay for it.

How many dollars from the tobacco companies are sitting pretty in Bush’s pockets right now though, that’s what I want to know.