The companies would pass as much of this cost increase along to their customers as the market will bear, and no court could stop them. Filing a Medicaid suit will have a negative effect on a state's legal system. By contrast, even the most thoughtful and ethical plaintiff's lawyer has, by design , less interest in those matters. A close alliance between the attorneys general and the activist plaintiffs' bar threatens to be an unholy one, and should be avoided. The legislature's power to tax should not be handed to the judicial branch in the guise of a lawsuit.
Tax policy is constitutionally the responsibility of the legislative branch.
If a state government wishes to raise money to cover the smoking-related charges against Medicaid or other public health programs, its legislature can raise the state's cigarette tax. No bounty need be paid to the plaintiffs' bar. In addition, a cigarette tax increase would be much simpler, much cheaper, and much quicker than a lawsuit against the tobacco companies, and would pose no danger to a state's constitutional order or the rest of its legal system. Copyright 1997 The Heartland Institute. Nothing in this Executive Summary should be construed as reflecting the views of The Heartland Institute, nor as an attempt to aid or hinder the passage of legislation.