Several measures affecting public health will be on the November ballot

Published: Wednesday, July 20, 2022 - 11:17am

Several measures affecting public health will be on the November ballot. And there are a few that could have a significant impact on people's lives.

Will Humble, executive director of the Arizona Public Health Association, is talking about Proposition 310.

"It’s going to improve, if it passes, the EMS care and the resources and the professionalism and the staffing in the rural and frontier parts of Arizona," Humble said. 

Humble also supports the Predatory Debt Collection Protection Act because income has an impact on a person’s health. 

When people get behind on their payments and have big debts, especially medical debt, the current debt collection laws allow garnishment of wages up to 25%, even if it puts you below the poverty level. 

Humble says the initiative would help level the playing field by limiting interest rates on medical debt to 3%.

Another proposition that indirectly hurts public health is Proposition 132, which would require voter initiatives that include a tax or fee to pass with at least 60% of the vote. 

Humble points to the 2006 Smoke Free Arizona Act, which prohibited smoking indoors.

"One of the things that was in the Smoke Free Arizona Act was a 2 cent per pack tax to pay for enforcement of that Smoke Free Arizona Act. And it passed, you know, by a pretty healthy margin about 56% to 44%," he said. 

Humble says if Prop. 132 were in effect then, the Smoke Free Arizona Act would have failed. 

Politics Health + Medicine