Every version of reform contains some expansion of Medicaid, but to my knowledge none contains a plan to pay for the expansion. This is a simple idea that should be politically feasible and, over time, good for public health.
Using a consumption tax, or sin tax, on so-called junk food isn't a new idea. Obama himself has floated the idea of a soda tax. But soda is just part of the problem.
Americans consume a lot of added sugar and sweeteners, often unknowingly. The USDA reports that Americans consume between 150 and 170 pounds of simple sugars annually. According to Mother Jones we each eat an average of 84 pounds a year of sugar and high fructose corn syrup.
A tax of 1/4 cent per gram (about $1.13 a pound) on all added sugars and sweeteners should net between $50 and $57 billion a year using the USDA estimates. Probably a bit nearer the lower number as the tax would not be on sugar or sweetener purchased by consumers directly, but on ADDED sugars and sweeteners included in products by manufacturers.
Ideally, and for fairness sake, this would include ALL sugars and sweetener, be they natural or artificial that do not naturally occur in the food being produced. Milk sugars in ice cream wouldn't be taxed, but other sugars would. The sugar naturally occurring in canned peaches wouldn't be taxed, but the "lite (corn) syrup" would.
For simplicity sake the tax would be charged directly to the manufacturer or importer, who would of course pass this cost on in some way.
Liberals are generally anti-consumption tax due to the regressive nature of such taxation. This tax may have a larger impact on lower income families, but those same families are most likely to benefit from expanding Medicaid. At most the cost would average out at about $16 per person per month.
It is simple and doable.
Liberals want to expand care.
Neo-cons love a sin tax.