HF 3391 - Make Them Eat Tofu

I spoke earlier of my intent to dig into HF 3391 and I have spent the last couple days doing that (and a lot of BPOU business). I thought what I would do is tackle the bill in small sections - covering one or two articles at a time. In all fairness to the author(s) I should clarify that this is not necessarily a "universal" health care bill...from Article 2, Section 1, subdivision 4...

5.1 Subd. 4. State health care program. For purposes of this section, "state health
5.2 care program" means the medical assistance, MinnesotaCare, and general assistance
5.3 medical care programs.

...but it is a start!

Article 1 begins with a few "goals" for state wide health improvement(from Article 1, Section 3)

2.10 Sec. 3. [145.986] STATEWIDE HEALTH IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM.
2.11 Subdivision 1. Goals. The initial goals of the public health access fund are to reduce
2.12 the percent of Minnesotans who are obese or overweight to less than half by the year
2.13 2020 and to reduce tobacco smoking by 2 percent annually starting in 2011.

...so the state is going to tell everyone on MN Care and other general assistance programs (aka THE POOR) what they can eat and how much they can weigh. Continuing...

2.18 Subd. 2. Grants to local communities. Beginning January 1, 2009, the
2.19 commissioner of health must provide grants to community health boards to convene,
2.20 coordinate, and lead locally developed programs targeted at achieving measurable health 2.21 improvement goals.

...and...

2.33 Subd. 4. Media campaign. The commissioner of health must conduct a statewide
2.34 marketing campaign using public media to reinforce local efforts at addressing health
2.35 improvement goals.

While there are laudable and lofty goals in this bill, the first question that springs to mind is where in the heck is the state going to get the money for all of this new spending (remember - we are looking at a $935 million dollar budget deficit already). Well the authors turned to their favorite patsy.....smokers (Article 1 Section 4)!

3.14 Subd. 3. Fee imposed. (a) A fee is imposed upon the sale of cigarettes in this
3.15 state, upon having cigarettes in possession in this state with intent to sell, upon any
3.16 person engaged in business as a distributor, and upon the use or storage by consumers
3.17 of cigarettes.

So let's see.....we have a new gas tax, a new sales tax and an increase of the cigarette "user fee" all of which hurt the poorest among us the most! Tell me again who is the party of the poor?

Aside from all that, what gets me is the lack of logic that is going into these funding schemes...and schemes is exactly what we are. We are funding health care programs on the backs of smokers all the while saying we are going to stamp out smoking? We are going to fund roads and bridges on gasoline taxes when gas tax revenues all the while mandating more fuel efficient vehicles, mass transit and alternative fuel vehicles? Where is the logic in that thinking?

Not only is the DFL funding the future on the backs of the poor today, they are setting us up for larger and larger tax increases as the current funding starts to dry up. Is this really the way we want to fund roads....or health care?