Any day now, Gov. Mitch Daniels will sign a law increasing the per-pack tax on cigarettes by 44 cents.

House Bill 1678 will take effect upon passage.

Barb Shoemaker, a retail clerk at Smoke Shop in Cedar Lake, said she is worried her sales will drop after the extra tax is added and some people try to quit smoking. But, she said, "We get people from Illinois coming in."

Since she expects the cigarettes to still cost less than those in Illinois, she doesn't expect to go out of business anytime soon.

The 44-cent cigarette tax increase will subsidize a health-care plan for 132,000 uninsured Indiana residents.

The new tax will raise $206.7 million annually, according to Rep. Charlie Brown, D-Gary, who championed the package.

Up to $11 million is earmarked to go toward child immunizations.

Federal matching funds and state money from other programs would bring the total in the health-care fund to $561 million.

The tax increase will raise the per-pack cigarette tax in Indiana to 991�2 cents.

On Monday, Daniels called the Healthy Hoosiers plan "the most important health-care plan of our lifetime."

The plan will also include buy-in options for small businesses to pool resources to buy health insurance for employees, and a pretax "125" employee health insurance plan. The 125 plan will allow employees to put pretax payroll money into an account to spend on health costs.

Carol Cutter, a deputy commissioner with the state Insurance Department, testified last week that an employee should save at least 26 percent on health insurance premiums.

The program will slash health-care costs for employers.

Republican legislative leaders were adamant that "consumer choice" be a part of any health-care plan tied to a cigarette tax increase.

The measure received bipartisan support, passing the House by a 70-29 vote and the Senate by a 37-13 vote.

All members of Northwest Indiana's legislative caucus voted in favor of the bill in both houses.

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