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The Issue: Ballot Question One.
The Ad: No on One, in opposition to Question One, which asks,
"Do you want to reject the parts of a new law that change the method of funding Maine's Dirigo Health Program through charging health insurance companies a fixed fee on paid claims and adding taxes to malt liquor, wine and soft drinks?'
Ad title: Untitled
Length: 30 Seconds
Produced by: Ursus Productions, based in Waterville, Maine.
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Dr. Amy Madden: |
The 2007 Blue Ribbon Commission recommended using beer, wine and sugar drinks to fund health coverage for Maine families and children. |
On Screen: |
“No on One”.
A list of supporting organizations flashes on screen.
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Dr. Amy Madden: |
Preventive care keeps kids healthy. Maine has reduced the number of uninsured families, improving and saving lives. One penny on a glass of wine, three pennies on a bottle of beer, four pennies on a can of soda. Isn’t that worth a child’s health? Please vote no on one. |
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MPBN's Barbara Cariddi researched the claims made in this political advertisement by the No on One Coalition, the group opposing repeal of a newly-enacted beverage tax to replace the funding mechanism for the state-subsidized Dirigo Health program. |
BACKGROUND |
Question One was sparked by the Maine Legislature’s effort to find a new way to fund the state-sponsored Dirigo health program, which aims to provide health coverage for Maine’s uninsured based on ability to pay. The change was sought after the old funding mechanism--a fee on insurers based on how much money the program saved in health care costs--became the target of lawsuits and regulatory battles. Among the alternatives recommended by a blue ribbon panel convened by Governor John Baldacci was to increase taxes on cigarettes and/or beverages. Lawmakers at first turned to an increase in the cigarette tax to fund the program, but at the last minute decided instead to hike taxes on beer, wine and soda. The increase, according to a legislative analysis, will add about 2.5 cents to the cost of a bottle of beer, 7 cents to the cost of a bottle of wine, and just under 4 cents to the tab for a 12-ounce can of soda.
Voting “yes” on ballot question one is a vote to repeal the tax. Voting “no” is a vote to keep the tax. |
“Maine has reduced the number of uninsured families, improving and saving lives.” |
More than 11,000 Mainers are now enrolled in the Dirigo Health program, which also covers an additional 5,600 parents of kids on MaineCare, the state’s Medicaid program. If you assume that at least some of these enrollees would otherwise be uninsured, then the statement is true. Surveys by several organizations, including the American College of Physicians, indicate that the insured enjoy better health in general than the uninsured, so it’s likely true that Dirigo has helped improve, and perhaps even save, lives. Since its inception in 2003, Dirigo has also reduced health care costs in Maine by nearly $160 million dollars, according to the director of Maine's Office of Health Care Policy and Finance Trish Riley, who attributes that figure to the state's Superintendent of Insurance. However, high enrollment has been considered crucial to Dirigo’s success, and so far, the program has fallen far short of its goal of enrolling 130 thousand uninsured Mainers.
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“One penny on a glass of wine, three pennies on a bottle of beer, four pennies on a can of soda.” |
These figures are in line with the language in the original bill. LD 2247 raises the tax on wine from 30 to 65 cents a gallon, except for manufacturers of less than 20 thousand gallons a year; it also imposes a new tax of $4 a gallon on syrup used to make soft drinks and 42 cents a gallon of bottled soft drinks and soft drinks produced using powder, and it raises the tax on malt beverages—beer, essentially—from 25 to 54 cents a gallon (though the law exempts Maine’s small craft breweries that produce less than 100 thousand barrels a year.) That translates to a tax of about 7 cents on a bottle of wine, close to 3 cents on a bottle of beer and around 4 cents on a 12-oz. can of soda. |
“Isn’t that worth a child’s health?” |
This statement implies that if the people’s veto of LD 2247 succeeds, more kids will end up without coverage, and thus without health care. According to the state’s Office of Health Policy and Finance, Dirigo enrollees include 2300 children. The question is whether the repeal of the beverage tax will be the final straw for the Dirigo program. If the repeal succeeds, funding for Dirigo will revert to the old, controversial savings offset mechanism, which has cost the state an estimated one million dollars to defend in court, according to Trish Riley. To keep the program viable over the long term, the legislature would likely have to come up another new funding mechanism to replace LD 2247.
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Amy Fried
University of Maine
- Associate Professor of Political Science
- Associate Dean for Research in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
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The two ads on Question 1 demonstrate how framing an issue – making a case for what an issue is about – is key to political communication and persuasion.
The Yes on 1 ad emphasizes taxes, the cost borne by taxpayers. It never mentions what this dedicated tax pays for nor the actual cost of the tax, but instead links the tax to the economy and the difficulties Maine people have in facing energy costs and other economic challenges. Furthermore, the ad links the tax to the Maine legislature which, it says, “every time they turn around, they have a new idea, they want to increase taxes to fund their new idea.” With this phraseology, the legislature’s policy positions and legislative enactments are separated from what the people want. State legislators are presented as out of touch with the concerns of Maine people.
The imagery and language of the ad reinforce this message. The narrator is outside in the woods, has a Maine accent, and uses straightforward, clear language to lodge his complaints against the tax. A list of endorsers is provided but it screens through quickly at the end and does not appear to be intended to constitute much in the way of persuasion, except perhaps to demonstrate that various Maine groups support the anti-tax position.
In contrast, the No on 1 ad frames the issue in terms of the health care program supported by the tax. The narrator states that this effort has led to “improving and saving lives” and touts preventative care. When turning to the cost, it is presented in terms of pennies per drink consumed and the ad shows a large picture of a penny. A woman physician, shown in her office with a young boy, narrates the spot. Dr. Madden conveys warmth and caring and the music is soft and pleasant. The list of endorsers is much more present than in the Yes on 1 ad and both the narrator and these endorsers convey concern for the health of Maine people. While the Yes on 1 ad places legislators as their opponent on this issue, the No on 1 ad instead presents health care providers as the key group against the referendum.
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Ron Schmidt
University of Southern Maine
- Associate Professor of Political Science
- Specialties: Political Theory, Racial and Ethnic Politics and Urban Politics.
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The "No on One Coalition" and "Fed Up With Taxes" are campaigning not just on the outcome of Question One, but on its meaning. Employing competing types of expertise, the campaigns are arguing over whether the initiative is a penny-wise, pound-foolish measure that endangers children's health care or a restraint on an irresponsible state legislature. Both ads nonetheless draw our attention to their missing middle ground, the hard choices forced by Maine's economic uncertainty.
The two ads don't just disagree; they read Question One completely differently.
The ad from "Fed Up With Taxes" begins with a man who identifies himself as "a forester" and one of many Mainers who are struggling in the current economy. After describing a general state of economic hardship in Maine, he criticizes the state legislature as unable to "prioritize," and as quick to "increase taxes to fund" any number of vaguely defined "new ideas." In the narrative of this ad, then, Question One is a rebuke of an idealistic and fiscally irresponsible state government, and an attempt by economically vulnerable citizens to resist taxation; children's health care is not mentioned, except, by implication, as one of the legislature's many expensive and "back-breaking" ideas.
The "No on One" ad features Dr. Amy Madden treating a child. Dr. Madden is identified as a citizen of Rome, Maine. Thus before she begins talking, her white lab coat, hometown, and patient combine to present an image of overlapping models of expertise: she can speak to issues of health care as a physician and to the financial concerns of ordinary Mainers as a resident of a small town in Kennebec County. She speaks in a no-nonsense tone of voice, and, rather than using the toxic word "taxes," pairs children's health care with "beer, wine and sugar drinks." She reiterates this point later in the ad ("One penny for a glass of wine, three pennies for a beer, four pennies for a can of soda") over a visual of a slowly spinning coin. She also cites Maine's success in extending health care coverage to families; the ad thus asserts that the new Dirigo funding plan is a small but necessary investment in an important and functioning system.
The ad's message is that Question One and the law it was created to veto are, simply put, two sides in a debate on funding children's health care.
Watching these ads together can be frustrating; in important ways, they talk past each other. One side employs the expert voice of a sensible Maine physician to speak in defense of children's heath insurance while the other presents the expert voice of a struggling Maine forester in an attack on out-of-touch legislators during economic hard-times. They do, however, direct the voter to the crucial topic that lies between their messages: the fate of health care for children during a time of disappearing public and private resources. If taxing beverages is too regressive a way to fund children's health care, how *will* that vital need be met? Neither campaign answers that question in this ad, but clearly this is a central issue which needs to be addressed.
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Support for Your Vote 2008 has been provided, in part, by:
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