In California, the Democratic Party is attempting to raise funds to support a universal health insurance program. Their program they plan to implement will add a tax of $2 per pack of cigarettes. The tax would generate about $2 billion per year to benefit universal healthcare for California. Last year, Big Tobacco spent about $65 million to fight a $2.60 per pack tax increase. Big Tobacco defeated the proposed tax increase and will surely put up another fight to defeat the current proposal.

Universal health insurance is the Democratic Party's cure all theory and they are singling out Big Tobacco to fund the proposal. The tax increase will eventually influence some people to quit smoking or decrease the amount of cigarettes they smoke; which in turn will ultimately decrease the revenue the tax will raise. The people that need universal healthcare are the lower and middle working class citizens of the state. The demographic of cigarette smokers tend to be the middle and lower working class. The tax would essentially end up hurting the middle and lower class by increasing the tax on a product they use on a daily basis.

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