Let's Tax Fast Food for Health Care Savings

By his own words, fixing our health care system has been one of the most important goals President Barack Obama has targeted since he announced his run for the presidency.

And in this week's address to the nation, the president provided a few more details to his outline to reform health care for Americans without adding to the federal deficit.

Obama claims that it will cost $635 billion as a down payment to fund the reform plan. He says $300 billion will come from savings generated by reducing Medicare overpayments to private insurers and eliminating waste in Medicare and Medicaid.

The problem with those figures is that they are in dispute. Depending on which Washington D.C. think-tank you listen to, the amount of savings to be derived from the trimming of fraud and waste varies wildly.

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There is no doubt that new and creative ways are needed to fund health care reform.

I have a suggestion that came into clear focus last week by the sights I took in walking through the downtown restaurant complex in Silver Spring, Md. about 10 miles from the nation's capitol. There, hundreds of people mingled while kids played in an outdoor fountain. And obesity reigned.

It seemed like at least every other people walking about was not just a tad overweight but HUGE. Young kids, teens, adults, black, white, Hispanic, men, women - many of them looking like they were the winners of pie-eating contests.

Silver Spring isn't alone. Just check the figures on widespread obesity in America.

My idea isn't new, but I think it has some merit. Why not put a special tax on unhealthful foods that do nothing but add inches to waistlines and contribute to the rising costs we all have to pay for health care?

There will be some snags in creating such a tax. For instance, would a Big Mac sandwich qualify for the tax? Some supporters would argue that such sandwiches do include items from the basic food groups and should be exempt. Others would point to the high amounts of fat and sodium as the reason they should be taxed.

All I know is if we are going to get serious about fixing health care, we need new funding streams to make it happen. Let the fat cats pay for it, because obesity costs us all.