(STATEHOUSE) Health groups are urging the Senate to set aside its misgivings about tax increases to endorse a tax hike on cigarettes. The extra dollar a pack passed by the House would move Indiana’s cigarette tax from the nation’s 17th-lowest to 17th-highest. The plan is to spend that money on Medicaid and free up existing money for roads. But I-U Health cardiologist Julie Clary argues the debate over doubling the cigarette tax shouldn’t be about taxes at all, but about making it too expensive to be unhealthy. She predicts the higher price would prompt 40-thousand smokers to quit, and dissaude 55-thousand teenagers from starting. Indiana last raised its cigarette tax nine years ago, to pay for the Healthy Indiana Plan insurance package.