INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana General Assembly voted to raise the cigarette tax 44 cents per pack Sunday. Gov. Mitch Daniels proposed the measure to help defray healthcare costs for more than 800,000 uninsured Hoosiers, reports the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette.

About 33 cents of each 44-cent tax-hike per pack will go to the Indiana Check-up Plan, which helps 132,000 Hoosiers earning up to 200 percent of the poverty level. Five cents will go to other health initiatives, including increasing financing for Indiana Tobacco Prevention and Cessation, according to the newspaper.

Three cents will be used to increase the Medicaid reimbursement rate for providers, and another three cents will go to support employers’ health insurance plans modeled after a federal law that allows companies to use pre-tax dollars to pay for employee health insurance.

Indiana’s last cigarette tax hike was in 2002 to its current level of 55.5 cents a pack.

Sen. Lindel Hume, told the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette he supports the program but finds it unacceptable that the state is depending on revenue from smokers.

President Pro Tem David Long, noted the diseases caused by smoking create a serious cost to Hoosiers who don’t smoke. “I am comfortable with the user-fee mentality,” Long said to the newspaper.

The May NACS Magazine looks at the impact of state excise taxes for cigarettes on convenience retailers.