If health care reform crashes, is there a value added tax in our future?

So far, the town hall health care debates have yielded more heat than light. But what should not be lost on investors is that the anti-reform effort is self-defeating from a fiscal standpoint.

For the nation as a whole, health care is a case of 'pay me now or pay me a lot more later.' Former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan suggests that, absent major reform of the current system, the pressures on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will grow so great that the nation will be compelled to add a new revenue source: a value-added tax.