A Soda Sin Tax for Health Care?

How will this nation pay for existing health care, let alone expanding coverage for more Americans? The Senate Finance Committee is considering several new revenue streams, including a sin tax on sugar-sweetened beverages such as soda, fruit drinks, sports drinks and flavored coffee. You may already be avoiding metabolic syndrome in a can, but what about that mocha latte? There's not many 100 percent water drinkers out there.

One major advocate of the soda tax, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, says soft drink consumption would drop 1 percent for each penny taxed, raising $1.5 billion per year. Yet people brandish pitchforks around soda sin taxes. New York Gov. David Patterson's proposed sugary beverage tax went nowhere, and last November Maine voters repealed a soda tax.

Could these taxes change behavior, slim down Americans and lead to less health problems and costs related to obesity? Former President Clinton says a soda tax should not pay for health care reform. He's worked hard with the Alliance for a Healthier Generation to reduce childhood obesity. To fund health care, he recommends containing health care costs and focusing on incentives for prevention and wellness.

It's interesting only sugary beverages are considered for the tax, diet soda is tied to metabolic syndrome, too. Personally riding the soda wagon for a couple months now, it's definitely better for the waistline. So are the best prevention and wellness incentives ever -- working out regularly, eating right and America's most important step against obesity, eating less.