Long Thompson Wants To Use Cigarette Tax To Fund Health Insurance Pool

INDIANAPOLIS -- Democratic candidate for governor Jill Long Thompson announced major health care proposal Tuesday, one she said won't cost taxpayers anything.

Long Thompson told a crowd gathered at a west-side business that she wants to divert 3 cents from the existing cigarette tax to create a health insurance pool for small businesses, 6News' Norman Cox reported.

Long Thompson said a government agency would be set up to manage the pool, and that businesses would be offered tax incentives to join.

"We have about 90,000 small businesses here in Indiana, but only about 34 percent of them are able to provide health insurance benefits to their employees," Long Thompson said. "In 2006 and 2007, we had over a million Hoosiers who, at one point or another, did not have health insurance coverage."

The cigarette tax currently goes to help fund the Healthy Indiana program, launched by Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels. Long Thompson said the diversion wouldn't hurt that program because she would use the money that already subsidizes health insurance for low-income Hoosiers.

Long Thompson said her plan is based largely on existing small business health insurance pools in Cleveland and New Mexico. She said those have been successful in getting coverage for hundreds of thousands of workers.