Health Care: Fixing our Broken Health Care System

Our health care system in Kansas is broken. The rising cost of care has become an increased burden for businesses and families and for too many an insurmountable obstacle to receiving much needed health services.

There is no easy fix to this problem. The only solution is comprehensive health care reform - from the way we administer health services to the choices we make in our own lives.

The Kansas Health Policy Authority, after visiting communities across the state, has submitted an aggressive plan to repair this ailing system. To pay for the health reform proposals, this plan includes a fifty-cent increase in tobacco taxes. Some view this as a political liability - a tax increase in an election year.

However, Kansans overwhelmingly support an increase in tobacco taxes if it provides health care to more children - and this plan does that. The tobacco tax will open the doors of health care to 20,000 Kansas children.

To think that Kansans view a tobacco tax the same way they view income or property taxes, greatly underestimates the people of our state.

Tobacco related diseases are the number one preventable cause of death in Kansas, killing over 4,000 Kansas each year and generating nearly $930 million in health care costs.

Increasing the cost of tobacco products reduces the number of smokers and keeps teenagers from starting to smoke in the first place. Saving lives, enabling more children to receive health insurance, and paying for the comprehensive health reform Kansas needs are three great reasons to increase this tax.

For every member of the Kansas House of Representatives and the Kansas Senate, 2008 is an election year. There has been talk from some from legislators who say they will not pass a tax increase in an election year. Most Kansans and I hope that is not the case. The Kansas Legislature has a moral obligation to pass the health reform package in its entirety, including the tobacco tax as a funding source. It's what Kansans want; it's what our children deserve.