Greeson: Politics gets in the way of what could be great government

Like so much from this legislative session, the decision to increase the retailers' cut on tobacco products was tepid.

It was a decision made with good intentions, and supported by doctors across the state. All too often, politicians fail to consider the opinions of medical experts on medical issues.

Think about insurance decisions or social measures that involve health, and try to remember how much weight the views of doctors are given. That's a narcissistic shame.

Doctors by nature are going to support all measures to curb smoking. Even doctors who smoke will be on board with this.

So consider the new law this paper's Andy Sher told us about in Sunday's Times Free Press, a positive in the fight against cancer.

And consider it a negative for misguided consequences.

Jay Greeson

If a government is going to raise the price of smokes, raise it so it benefits the state. Lawmakers should look to raise the state's income off every pack to offset the costs of thousands of future cancer patients without insurance who are volunteering the rest of us to pay for their care after a lifetime of smoking.

And while the Insure Tennessee movement has been shelved this year, to think that millions of state dollars will not be spent on non-insured, low-income patients down the road is folly.

It is where we are and where we are headed. Regardless of whether President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act is mandated or not, we are all going to pay for indigent care for years to come.

One of Erlanger's biggest expenses is its cost of unreimbursed care, which the hospital says was around $86 million in 2014. When a public hospital like Erlanger must take on millions of dollars of uncollectable debt for undeniable care, all of us pay for it.

While the percentage of insured smokers is not known, the fact that more than 23 percent of the adults in our state smoke means there are thousands of potential cancer patients who will need millions of dollars in care.

So for the state to raise cigarette prices and pocket the money potentially could lead to less smoking while laying a fiscal foundation to pay for the treatment for the uninsured.

Alas, the extra money goes into the pockets of the store owners. Have we mentioned that the governor's family owns the Pilot Flying J convenience store chain that Forbes calls one of the largest privately owned business in the country? That's 550 or so locations to sell cigarettes.

To be fair, supporters and detractors of the bill -- which will raise the seller's take 35 cents per pack in three stages over the next two years -- told Sher that this bill did not come from Gov. Bill Haslam.

Still, perception is a powerful force in the political realm. When the leader of a state, whose brother runs an 11-figure business that stands to make millions from this, signs a bill, that negative perception seems is unavoidable.

By all accounts, powerful Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey was a big backer of this bill. Sher reported that a convenience store chain is headquartered in Ramsey's home of Blountville, Tenn. Sher even reported that Ramsey even asked the governor to make room in the budget for the bill's potential revenue loss.

So this decision just might have been about good old-boy politics rather than good government, which is a shame. Cutting back on smoking is a noble cause, but doing it to line your constituents' pockets rather than prepare the state for the looming medical costs ahead is short-sighted.

It's hard to avoid the feeling that this bill is doing something good that could have so easily been something great.

Jay Greeson's column appears on Page A2 on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays. His sports columns are scheduled for Tuesdays and Fridays. You can read his online column the "5-at-10" Monday through Friday at times freepress.com after 10 a.m. Contact him at jgree son@timesfreepress.com and follow him on Twitter at @ jgreesontfp.