Published: April 07, 2009 11:52 am      

In Your View — 04/08/09

Health burden not offset by tax

While the March 31 story assessing the reaction by liquor store owners to the cigarette tax increase was well intended, its scope was a bit constricted.

It’s been estimated that smoking-related diseases raise medical costs in the U.S. by over $75 billion per year and that smokers may impose $600 to $1,100 per year in productivity and absenteeism costs on businesses while missing 50 percent more work days each year than nonsmokers. In light of this, the actual cost to society still goes way beyond the current rate of taxation.

According to a study authored by economics professors at MIT and UC-Berkeley (www.worldlungfoundation.org/downloads/report_Gruber.pdf), the cost per pack of cigarettes may be as high as $35 when factoring in a smoker’s health care costs, lost productivity and shortened lifespan. Publicly funded insurances such as Medicare and Medicaid often have the highest exposure to these costs. Hence the nonsmokers in society are subsidizing and enabling the habits of smokers.

While tobacco addictions are tough to overcome, there’s evidence that those of lower socioeconomic status are particularly sensitive to these price increases and can modify their consumption accordingly. This indicates that the tax is generally progressive rather than regressive and those who get the most value are those who are deterred from starting in the first place.

Further benefits of the cigarette tax are that the nicotine replacement therapies have become relatively cheaper. Most of these therapies are now equivalent or cheaper than a one-pack-per-day habit.

For those trying to quit help is available through King’s Daughter’s Tobacco Cessation Program which will be starting a new term of classes April 21. Enrollment is free and open to the public by calling (606) 408-6400.

Matthew J Pierzala, DO, KDMC Hospitalist



State delegation can impact climate

Many of us have heard the warnings: Global warming is a catastrophic threat to our environment, our health and our economy. Now, Kentucky is in a unique position to affect the future of climate change legislation because our U.S. representatives sit on the House Energy and Commerce committees. Our representatives and their committee colleagues will be the first to debate and vote on a bill recently introduced by the committee’s chairman, Henry Waxman, D-California.

Because it is based on the best available science, the League of Women Voters of Kentucky supports Chairman Waxman’s bill as a great first step toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions that are causing climate change, as well as providing support for dealing with the effects of climate change in the most vulnerable countries around the world.

Climate change is already causing increasingly severe droughts and heat waves, intensifying floods and hurricanes in the U.S. and around the world, and triggering more wildfires. Climate change can devastate crops, create drinking water shortages and increase the spread of infectious diseases.

Please join us in calling on U. S. Representatives to support strong, effective legislation to curb the pollution that is causing global warming. It will help spur the use of renewable energy, help create new green jobs here at home, and help cut our dependence on foreign oil.

Teena Halbig, president , League of Women Voters of Kentucky



How are farmers making a living?

I have a question about Kentucky farmers and how they are coping with tobacco being under attack by a world of non-users. What is the tobacco farmer doing to make a living?

My wife’s people were tobacco growers back up a hollow called Stinson, just this side of Grayson, but I don't think there are any left to ask this guestion.

In years past,the business places in Grayson would carry a Carter County farmer all year until he sold his tobacco crop. Then, they would settle up. There was a lot of trust and faith in those days. Is there any today?

From the way things are going today, farming may be the only game in town to stay alive and have food on the table.

I remember the Great Depression and a time or two when there was no food in the house, but we survived.

Emery Higginbotham, St. Albans, W.Va.