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At the nexus of the health care reform debate and the economic recession is a proposal to tax those foods that are directly linked to health problems such as diabetes, heart disease and other obesity-related diseases. Such foods include the obvious culprits of fast-food and sugar-laden drinks marketed by mega corporations like McDonalds and Pepsi-co. It costs the nation $147 billion annually to treat diseases that stem from consuming such foods. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that a tax of only 3 cents per 12 ounce soda would raise $50 billion over ten years, which could be used to offset the healthcare costs. The political battle has many hallmarks of the effort several decades ago to lower the incidence of smoking related diseases by taxing cigarettes. Not surprisingly, an intense lobbying effort by the American Beverage Association has beat back efforts by Congress to insert taxes on sugar-, salt- and fat-laden foods as part of the health care reform bill. Now, a new study from the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, suggests, among other things, that taxes on high-calorie, low-nutrient foods are one way to approach a growing public health problem.

GUEST: Antronette, Yancey, Professor at the Department of Health Services, Co-Director, Center to Eliminate Health Disparities at the UCLA School of Public Health, Michael Jacobson, Executive Director of Center for Science in the Public Interest