First, be sure to check out our new Medicaid/SCHIP report on why SCHIP expansion is bad for Maine.
However, this blog relates to a different issue. Recently, the Tax Foundation released a study examining how states would fare under SCHIP expansion as proposed by Senator Gordon Smith. His proposal would expand SCHIP by $46.5 billion and would pay for it with a 61 cent increase in the federal cigarette tax.
The study finds that Maine would pay $450 million in higher cigarette taxes, but would only receive $343 million in additional SCHIP funding. As a result, $107 million would be sucked out of the Maine economy by the federal government.
Of course, one has to wonder if Senator Snowe was aware of such facts when she co-sponsored similar SCHIP expansion bills?