I'm always astonished at the misinformation - if not downright 'pork pies' (this is Cockney rhyming slang. Clue: focus on rhyming the second word) I hear either from the Senate, from Congress or on NPR about the cost and poor quality of Britain's free National
Health Service. Opponents of the President's health care reforms might consider this: the US spends 16.2 percent of GDP annually on healthcare, around twice as much as what the NHS costs. Yet the life expectancy of the average American is lower than the average Brit. According to a UN list of length of life expectancy, the UK is ranked 21st and the US at number 38.

Opponents of the President's proposed health care reforms who cite the cost of overhauling the hugely expensive US system could easily reap a cent or two and help reduce the obesity problem that costs the system so much with one tiny move: Put that tax on sodas.

According to the Institute of Medicine, treating obesity-related diseases last year cost the US tax payer $147 billion. Around a cent more tax per ounce of soft drink would net 16 cents on a 500ml bottle and generate around $14.9 billion. Yet the Constitution is cited in defense of soda drinkers and the tax labelled an attack on personal freedom. How absurd. No-one is going to be prevented from buying a soda if they want to.

The Coca-Cola company wants us to focus on exercise, not what we're sluicing into our mouths. CEO Muhtar Kent wrote last week in the Wall Street Journal, “If we're genuinely interested in curbing obesity, we need to take a hard look in the mirror and acknowledge that it's not just about calories in. It's also about calories out.”

True enough. But Kent feels the soft drinks market, with its abundance of sports drinks, energy drinks and sweetened waters, is being unfairly targetted when 94.5 percent of our calories come from foodstuffs. That leaves 5.5 percent of calories from soft drinks. No small amount for something that offers no nutritional benefit whatsoever.