{"id":17836,"date":"2018-11-02T09:00:25","date_gmt":"2018-11-02T09:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/2018\/11\/02\/big-tobacco-spends-big-to-block-a-tax-and-medicaid-expansion-in-montana\/"},"modified":"2018-11-02T09:00:25","modified_gmt":"2018-11-02T09:00:25","slug":"big-tobacco-spends-big-to-block-a-tax-and-medicaid-expansion-in-montana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/big-tobacco-spends-big-to-block-a-tax-and-medicaid-expansion-in-montana\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Tobacco Spends Big To Block A Tax And Medicaid Expansion In Montana"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Eric Whitney<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

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\n Amanda Cahill, a supporter of Montana’s tobacco tax measure, I-185, at a press conference near the state capitol last August. Tobacco firms have spent $17 million in opposition to the initiative, compared to an $8 million campaign by those in favor of it.<\/p>\n

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Corin Cates-Carney\/Montana Public Radio<\/p>\n

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Corin Cates-Carney\/Montana Public Radio<\/p>\n

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Montana legislators expanded Medicaid by a very close vote in 2015. The measure passed with the condition that the expansion of Medicaid eligibility<\/a> in the state would expire in 2019 unless lawmakers voted to reapprove it. And once it expired, people who got Medicaid under the expansion would lose it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Fearing legislators might not renew funding for Medicaid’s expanded rolls, Montana’s hospitals and other health advocacy groups have come up with a ballot measure to keep it going \u2014 and to pay for it with a tobacco tax.<\/p>\n

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Amanda Cahill<\/a> works for the American Heart Association and is spokesperson for Healthy Montana<\/a>, the coalition backing the measure, which will be on Tuesday’s ballot. She says coalition members knew big tobacco would fight back.<\/p>\n

“We poked the bear, that’s for sure,” Cahill says. “And it’s not because we were all around the table saying, ‘Hey, we want to have a huge fight and go through trauma the next several months.’ It’s because it’s the right thing to do.”<\/p>\n

If ballot initiative I-185 <\/a>passes, it will mean an additional $2 per pack tax on cigarettes, and a tax on other tobacco products. It would also levee a tax on e-cigarettes, which are currently not taxed in Montana.<\/p>\n

The tobacco tax initiative has become the most expensive ballot measure race in Montana history \u2014 drawing more than $17 million in opposition funding from tobacco companies alone \u2014 in a state with fewer than 200,000 smokers. Most of that money has come from cigarette maker Altria. According to records from the National Center for Money in Politics<\/a>, that’s more money than Altria has spent on any state proposition nationwide since the center started keeping track in 2004.<\/p>\n