“A Billion here, A Billion there, Pretty soon you have real money”–that’s a take on an old quote, probably from US Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois. That adage is about to get tested if some health commissioners and scientists and other anti-sweet, sugary drink proponents get their way. A tax on soda has been bandied about before, but now it is being mentioned as a way to bring down health care costs.

You’ve heard plenty about the billions of dollars necessary for  implementation of a health care bill, now there’s a proposal that has the inherent concept of taxing sweet beverages (pops/sodas, energy, and sports beverages, for starters) and stuffing almost $14 billion a year into the health care coffers. Not a bad strategy since so many health problems (obesity and diabetes, for example) are related to the sweet, sugary beverages. BTW, the tax would not be on diet beverages–that’ll be another whole health discussion when somebody figures out the harmful effect from those ingredients!

The scientific paper published in The New England Journal of Medicine had another interesting belief: As soda prices increase, more consumers decide against that purchase. So if a consumer is taxed a penny an ounce on a sugary drink, that cost would go into the price of the product–watch out Big Gulp. The parallel, of course, is in the tobacco industry, which passed the taxes on to the consumer and drove the price of a pack of cigarettes into the stratosphere–but there are still smokers.

Here’s a chance to see who holds the power rings in Washington: The soft drink industry, the sugar lobby, health care advocates, or those who conduct scientific research? Maybe the power force will be from a newly minted organization, (which may or may not be part of a larger beverage association with a significant amount at stake), that plans to fight food taxes.

We’ll have to wait on the sidelines and opt for reverse osmosis tap water.