"New York doubling cigarette tax to pay for health care for poor", New York Times, December 18, 1999, by Raymond Hernandez

ALBANY, Dec. 17 -- Gov. George E. Pataki and legislative leaders from both major parties agreed today to raise the state's cigarette tax by 55 cents a pack in an ambitious effort to provide health care coverage for as many as one million uninsured New Yorkers.

Mr. Pataki and leaders of the Legislature also decided to renew a program that pays hospitals about $1.3 billion a year to train new doctors and treat poor people who show up in their emergency rooms with no way of paying their bills. The program had been set to expire at the end of the year, threatening the state's health care system with financial uncertainty.

The plan to expand coverage for the uninsured is expected to cost the state about $750 million over the next three and a half years. It would be financed with revenue from the added cigarette tax, as well as a share of the $450 million a year that the state is to receive from the settlement of the national lawsuit against tobacco companies. The plan would also be paid for with about $300 million in new federal health care funds. . . .

Peter Brimelow writes:

A classic case of how the immigration dimension is missing from establishment news coverage.  Of course, the spectacle of (Republican!) politicians mugging the tobacco companies is disgusting enough.  But the money is basically going to subsidize the settling of immigrants a.k.a the transformation of America.

We know about 6 million of the 22 million U.S. Hispanics are uninsured, quite possibly all immigrants and their U.S.-born children, since about one in every three U.S. Hispanics was born abroad.  We know that about two million of the five million or so permanently-settled illegal immigrants are uninsured. There are only about 6 million hard core uninsured - uninsured after a two-year period.  So the health insurance problem must be significantly, and could be substantially, an immigration problem.

And who exactly are these "poor people who show up in their emergency rooms with no way of paying their bills"? Note no provision is suggested for detecting illegals.