One of the more bizarre election year campaigns here in Michigan centers around Proposal 4. This is an initiative that would alter the state constitution to restrict how the state can spend the money it receives as part of the tobacco company settlement.
Of course the legal theory behind the tobacco settlement was that states had paid out hundreds of millions of dollars in extra health care costs for smokers, so the tobacco companies should compensate them for this.
In Michigan, like most states, little of the tobacco settlement money has gone into the health care system or into initiatives to lower smoking rates. Instead it goes to fund thing like scholarships for college students and a large part of the settlement gets kicked backed to cities to use however they please.
Proposal 4 would essentially change that, forcing the state to spend the money on health-related issues.
So what we have in Michigan is a war of words between hospitals and doctor on the one side and college students and municipalities on the other. It’s kind of funny to see anti-Proposal 4 commercials referring to hospitals as “rich special interests.” Yeah, hospitals are really rolling in the dough.
But what’s absurd is that both sides are wrong. The money shouldn’t be spent on smoking cessation programs or college scholarships or the pet projects of Michigan cities. If tobacco use really increased state expenses, then that means that taxes in Michigan were artificially high to pay for the health problems of smokers. The tobacco settlement, then, should be given back to taxpayers either directly in the form of refunds for past taxes that subsidized smokers or in the form of a tax cut.