BY MARK ISHKANIAN AND ED MILLER

The growing budget deficit, coupled with a need to find a more secure funding source for the Dirigo Health Initiative and the drive to keep Maine youth from taking up smoking, present the Maine Legislature with a unique opportunity at a time of tough choices. We are talking about increasing the state tobacco tax.

A proposal currently before the Legislature would use the revenue from a 50 cent increase in the tax on tobacco and equalization of taxes on all tobacco products to help pay for DirigoChoice, which provides subsidized health insurance for some lower-income Maine citizens.

DirigoChoice is currently funded by a highly unpopular savings offset payment (SOP) on health insurance claims. The proposal would end the SOP and replace it, in part, with revenues from an increased tax on tobacco products. It is only logical to shift Dirigo's funding from the backs of those struggling to afford health insurance to taxes on items that increase the cost of health insurance for all Maine people. The Governor's own Blue Ribbon Commission came to this same conclusion in 2006.

DirigoChoice is currently funded by a highly unpopular savings offset payment (SOP) on health insurance claims. The proposal would end the SOP and replace it, in part, with revenues from an increased tax on tobacco products. It is only logical to shift Dirigo's funding from the backs of those struggling to afford health insurance to taxes on items that increase the cost of health insurance for all Maine people. The Governor's own Blue Ribbon Commission came to this same conclusion in 2006.

No one can dispute that tobacco takes a terrible toll. Tobacco use is the single greatest preventable cause of death and disability in Maine; killing 2,100 Maine people annually and causing 9,300 hospitalizations. Smoking costs Maine more than $500 million dollars a year in direct health care costs. Nearly a quarter of Maine people still smoke and thousands of Maine kids take up smoking each year.

Maine has made tremendous progress in reducing the use of tobacco. Indeed, the American Lung Association's annual ranking of states' effort to reduce tobacco use lists Maine as the top state in the U.S. in tobacco policy for the third straight year.

Through a comprehensive tobacco prevention program, youth smoking rates have been slashed by almost 60% since 1996. Maine is also making progress in reducing its adult smoking rate. Current and past Legislatures and governors have shown true leadership: Maine has the nation's very best record in using tobacco settlement funds for health improvement purposes.

Maine continues to take bold steps to protect the health of its citizens by crafting policies and implementing programs that highlight the dangers of tobacco use and second-hand smoke while also helping smokers to quit. Our local Healthy Maine Partnership coalitions work closely with hospitals and schools to strengthen tobacco control policies and educational programs, including helping those who want to quit smoking to do so.

Raising the price of cigarettes remains the single most effective step we can take to keep children from beginning to smoke and to help those who have started to quit. Maine's current tobacco tax does not begin to reflect the true cost of tobacco's impact to the public and business. For every pack of cigarettes sold, nearly six dollars is spent in Maine on health care related to tobacco use. Even a dollar increase in taxes to $3.00 a pack (the highest proposal under consideration) will cover just half the costs of treating tobacco-related illnesses.

Raising the price of cigarettes is also a critical step in strengthening Maine's comprehensive and effective approach to tobacco control. This approach includes the Maine Tobacco Helpline (1-800-207-1230) and other treatment programs to assist those who want to quit, strong enforcement to prohibit sale of tobacco products to youth, effective anti-tobacco programs in schools, protecting children, workers and the general public from secondhand smoke, countering tobacco's devious marketing efforts, and the locally-based Healthy Maine Partnership coalitions. But more needs to be done.

A number of public health organizations -- including the American Lung Association of Maine, are encouraging the Legislature to increase the price of a pack of cigarettes by as much as a $1.

As Maine's largest health benefits company, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield supports an increase in the tobacco tax to reduce tobacco use, especially among our youth. Let's give our kids a future that is free of the addiction, disease, early death and skyrocketing health costs that tobacco use leaves in its path.

Raising the price of cigarettes is solid public health policy and will serve as a deterrent to the insidious problem of tobacco addiction while also helping solve the Dirigo Health funding problem.