Increase in alcohol tax would save millions of dollars

Since Maryland's tax on beer and wine has not been increased since 1972 and the tax on spirits has not been increased since 1955, Barry Rascovar was absolutely right in his column ("Tough budget cuts could make O'Malley a national player," Nov. 26) in describing an increase in our state's alcohol tax as "long overdue."

According to a study by professors David Jernigan and Hugh Waters of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the dime-a-drink increase in the Maryland alcohol tax that we and a broad coalition of Marylanders are proposing as the Lorraine Sheehan legislation in the 2011 session would save many lives from alcohol abuse and hundreds of millions of dollars in health care costs.

Approximately 100,000 of these new enrollees were children who have been eligible for years but were not enrolled, and we commend the O'Malley-Brown administration and, particularly, Secretary of Health John Colmers for doing all they could to make sure that as many of Maryland's children as possible have the health care they need.

Others are parents like Crystal Moon of Garrett County, whose doctor told her she would have been killed by an illness that her new state health care card helped to prevent. You can see other stories like Ms. Moon's of how the new health care law helped people at www.healthcareforall.com

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