The Value of Healthy Kids: Health Care Cost Savings and Children's Health Improvements Through Measure 50

Executive Summary

Measure 50 on Oregon’s November ballot would enact policies to help provide health insurance for over 100,000 uninsured children in Oregon, fund tobacco prevention and education, and provide funds to enroll an additional 10,000 low income adults in the Oregon Health Plan. The policies would be funded mainly by increasing Oregon's cigarette tax by 84.5 cents per pack.

The policies enacted by Measure 50 address the problems of children’s lack of access to health care. Approximately 116,000 children in Oregon do not currently have health coverage. These children are much more likely than uninsured children to not receive preventive medical care, to not receive all necessary medical care, and to receive a lower quality of emergency care.

Measure 50 also addresses one of the drivers of rising health care costs, which is in turn making it more difficult for families to afford coverage: tobacco-caused health problems. In this report, we found that enacting the policies in Measure 50 would result in a number of health care savings improvements for Oregon. Key findings include:

• Due to reduced youth smoking levels with the increased tobacco tax, Oregon will ultimately save an estimated $43.7 million for every year that projected reductions are maintained.

• Due to the measure's investment in tobacco prevention and education programs, Oregon will ultimately save at least $29.2 million per year in tobacco-related health costs.

• Each year, 2,730 Oregon children will not take up smoking, ultimately saving 874 children each year from premature death due to tobacco use.

Too many children in Oregon lack access to preventive health care and often experience negative health outcomes as a result. Too many Oregonians pay the price for tobacco use and related health costs.

For every year that Oregon delays enacting the policies in Measure 50, we are failing to prevent hundreds of premature deaths of youth who take up smoking, and we are locking in millions of dollars in future health costs.

The policies in Measure 50 will provide substantial benefits to Oregonians, in terms of health and access to health care for Oregon children, and in terms of health care cost savings and premature deaths averted from reduced tobacco use. OSPIRG recommends voters approve Measure 50.