TheJakartaPost

Please Update your browser

Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.

Jakarta Post

Cigarette excise could help finance health care

Presenting tobacco tax reforms and universal health coverage in an either/or type of argument is a false dilemma. 

Yurdhina Meilissa and Nurul HW Luntungan (The Jakarta Post)
Premium
Jakarta
Thu, July 13, 2017

Share This Article

Change Size

Cigarette excise could help finance health care On a decline – A tobacco farmer from an areas in the slope of Merapi-Merbabu mountain in Boyolali, Central Java, puts his chopped tobacco leaves in the sun to dry. Dried tobacco is now selling at only Rp 60,000 (US$4.55) per kilogram. (JP/Ganug Nugroho Adi)

A

news article in the July 3 edition of The Jakarta Post titled Cigarette excise ‘can’t’ help finance health care has put illicit trade in tobacco products (ITTP) in the limelight yet again.

For readers, air quotes in the headline are intriguing, even though it is not quite clear what they mean.

In gesture, air quotes signify irony or mockery. In print, a word that is presented as a quotation indicates a scare-line. This practice is often criticized, because readers will miss the clarity of thought.

The article begins with a claim that increasing retail cigarette prices through higher taxes would only fuel the growing ITTP in the country. Therefore, quoting a top government official, national health insurance provider BPJS has been advised to find other means to address its financial woes.

The official then comforts himself by proposing the Direct Allocation from Tobacco Products Excise Sharing Funds (DBHCHT) for national health insurance (JKN) as a means to address the program’s deficit.

First, the entire article is rife with logical fallacies. Second, it is cherry-picking. Injecting this commentary into the media hoodwinks the public into thinking that the economic costs of tobacco tax increases would far outweigh the benefits. Finally, the alternative policy proposed is immature and ignorant.

The first argument in the article contains a familiar fallacy. It directs us to jump to a conclusion about causation based on correlation between two events that occur simultaneously. Post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this), a Latin speaker would say.

to Read Full Story

We accept

TJP - Visa
TJP - Mastercard
TJP - GoPay
{

Your Opinion Counts

Your thoughts matter - share your experiences, suggestions, and any issues you've encountered on The Jakarta Post. We're here to listen.

Enter at least 30 characters
0 / 30

Thank You

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. We appreciate your feedback.