MSNBC’s First Read reported last night that the Obama Administration is now saying that illegal immigrants will be specifically prevented from obtaining coverage under the president’s health care proposal.  The chage comes on the heels of Rep. Joe Wilson’s (R-SC) “You lie!” outburst during Obama’s health care address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday.  Although the president denied from the rostrum of the House chamber that illegals would be covered by the plan, the Administration thought it necessary to make changes to the existing proposal in order to clarify the issue.

But the bigger story the MSNBC missed with its focus on the Wilson flap is found in the second bullet point sent out by the White House last night.  The Obama Administration inadvertently confirmed that the president’s plan will begin a slow take over of the health care system by the federal government.  How else could this be interpreted?

“Undocumented immigrants would be able to buy insurance in the non-exchange private market, just as they do today. That market will shrink as the exchange takes hold, but it will still exist and will be subject to reforms such as the bans on pre-existing conditions and caps.”

In other words, as the federal exchange takes hold, plans not complying with the federal government’s standards will start to disappear.  Eventually, it won’t make any sense for any company to offer health insurance as the federal requirements will make the business of providing health insurance far too expensive, and the premiums far too expensive for the insured.

The result will be that everyone will wind up with no other “choice” than the so-called public option, just as the Administration has planned all along.  It took Wilson “calling out” the president’s “misinformation” and “lies” to finally get the Administration to admit it.

I wonder what else he’s planning to give up?

Aides to President Barack Obama are putting the final touches on a new strategy to help Democrats recover from a brutal August recess by specifying what Obama wants to see in a compromise health care deal and directly confronting other trouble spots, West Wing officials tell POLITICO.

Obama is considering detailing his health-care demands in a major speech as soon as next week, when Congress returns from the August recess. And although House leaders have said their members will demand the inclusion of a public insurance option, Obama has no plans to insist on it himself, the officials said.

“We’re entering a new season,” senior adviser David Axelrod said in a telephone interview. “It’s time to synthesize and harmonize these strands and get this done. We’re confident that we can do that. But obviously it is a different phase. We’re going to approach it in a different way. The president is going to be very active.”

(H/T: Drudge) I look forward to seeing whatever plan the President’s committee of aides put together for him to push on Congress, of course. It’ll almost certainly be a platitudinous, amorphous piece of stitched-together fluff that will satisfy nobody and lecture everyone on the planet - at least, based on past experience - but at least we’ll finally have gotten the White House to actually think about and discuss what changes in health care policy the executive branch would like to see. Letting the liberal Democratic leadership in Congress do it for the President was a serious error: it’s about time that he puts his personal stamp on an actual, ‘official’ plan. In other words: it’s nice that the administration is finally taking health care reform seriously, and we look forward to seeing its tentative plan.

After we hack out all the bits of said plan that are just stupid, of course.  And make sure that various concessions are made.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.