Blogging as petition tool

I'm very concerned about expensive health costs, but I'm skeptical of these types of proposals and how they will be funded. There are 2 sources of revenue that laid out in this ballot initiative that are tenuous to me.

First is the ever-popular cigarette tax increase, with the semi-mutually exclusive goals of reducing smoking and providing revenue. If smokers respond to this negative incentive, they will reduce the number of cigarettes they buy. Then where will that lost revenue come from? Once could argue that the cost of their health care will decrease, but I doubt a X% decrease in cigarette purchases correlates with a X% decrease in health care costs.

Many smokers will simply find other sources for cigarettes. After Bloomberg increased NYC's cigarette tax by almost 19x, there have been numerous arrests of smugglers, some of them with more than $1 million in black market cigarettes. Don't be surprised when smokers drive to a neighboring state, steal, or form a black market to purchase cigarettes, thus increasing crime, receiving health care benefits, and not paying the added tax.

The other source of questionable income is making companies either provide health insurance to their employees or pay a tax (or "assessment"). That will raise the cost of doing business in Massachusetts in a period where we are losing people and businesses (Filene's, Gillette, Fleet, etc).

Yes, it's nice to stick it to mammoth corporations, and I do think they get unfair tax breaks and entitlements that should be eliminated. (FWIW, I never patronize businesses that have notorious health care benefits.) But the vast majority of businesses in the US are still small businesses. With this proposal, they'll have to pay less than larger companies, but it's still an extra cost that will encourage small employers to go elsewhere.

I think this plan will produce unintended consequences that nobody is talking about.