UPDATE: I’m receiving emails from folks who say an unsubscribe link was at the bottom of the Axelrod email they received. I’m also receiving more emails from people, including on Capitol Hill, who are saying they received Axelrod’s “viral” talking points memo despite never having signed up for White House emails in any way.

If there’s a part of this story that’s more troubling to me, it’s not the unsubscribe bit; CAN-SPAM likely doesn’t apply to government anyway, and I can always move Mr. Axelrod’s emails to my spam bucket on my own. Rather, the most troubling part here is the fact that the White House is apparently targeting people who have never offered their permission, or their contact information, to the White House in an increasingly desperate attempt to get somebody to listen to them.

Yesterday, the Obama White House launched a self-described “viral e-mail” that, according to ABC News, strategists and spokespersons hoped would “combat the viral e-mails that fly unchecked and under the radar, spreading all sorts of lies and distortions.”

The email, which is from Obama strategist David Axelrod and which has a subject line of “Something Worth Forwarding, is a lengthy (and wholly unremarkable)rehash of Obama administration/Organizing for America/Democrat National Committee talking points on the proposed health care overhaul.

The main content of this email is not really noteworthy in the least. What is noteworthy is the fact that Axelrod’s email appears to lack any way to opt out of future messages from info@messages.whitehouse.gov — a fact that, if Axelrod’s email is to be considered anything other than official government communication, may put it in violation of the federal CAN-SPAM Act.

The CAN-SPAM (”Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing”) Act, passed in 2003, requires emailers to “give recipients an opt-out method,” according to the Federal Trade Commission. Axelrod’s email did not do that.

Granted, the CAN-SPAM Act was written to protect people against commercial email spamming, not against a White House that sent an email without an opt-out feature to a list of people who never requested to be contacted by the Obama White House, and who never provided the administration with their email addresses.

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The “Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009,” the House health overhaul bill, creates the position of Health Choices Commissioner, or “Insurance Czar.”

The Insurance Czar would be appointed by the President to oversee the Health Choices Administration. This would be the 33rd federal ‘czar’ appointed by President Obama since his January 20, 2009 inauguration.

The appointee would be responsible for establishing and regulating geographically-based Health Insurance Exchanges, determining what benefits and coverages must be included in health insurance plans each year, and assessing fines on employers and individuals who do not provide or acquire health insurance.

The Insurance Czar would also be responsible for regulating private insurers’ marketing activities and use of funds, and for “promoting accountability” of insurance providers both within and outside of the Exchanges in “meeting Federal health insurance requirements.”

Additionally , the Insurance Czar would be privy to individuals’ tax return information, which he or she would use to determine who qualifies for federal subsidies to purchase insurance.

Source: HR 3200 §141-2

See it for yourself below, as Bill Burton, a spokesman for Barack Obama’s White House, says:

I don’t think that Speaker Pelosi was just claiming that people were wearing swastikas [at health care town hall meetings]; people are showing up to events with swastikas, dressed up as Hitler, with signs invoking Nazi Germany, so that’s not something that’s being made up.

Video:

The DC Examiner’s David Freddoso tried to run down this claim, and hit a stone wall:

White House spokesman Bill Burton’s statement on television earlier today that people are showing up at health care town halls dressed up as Hitler was outlandish enough that I had to call the White House and ask if there is anything to substantiate it.

As of this evening, the White House has offered no explanation for this bizarre claim.

By the way, the laugher line of Burton’s interview was the seven-word claim, “We’re trying to have a constructive debate.”

Calling your opponents a dangerous mob of swastika-wearing Hitlers and calling out SEIU thugs to beat them into submissive silence (not to mention setting up an informant tipline by which those who question Obama’s health plan in “casual conversation” can be turned in to the government) is one heck of a way to “have a constructive debate,” there, Bill. Well done.

UPDATE: According to The Hill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has now taken to referring to those who question Obamacare as “evil-mongers.” Classy, Senator.

The debate over health care reform — what constitutes it and what public opinion of such reform really is — has become more polarizing as the summer has gone on. Below are five key liberal talking points about health care “reform” and an accompanying dose of truth their peddlers so desperately need to hear.

1. Republicans, who either believe the health care status quo is perfectly acceptable or are in the pockets of lobbyists who pay them to say so, are opposed to the very idea of reform and want to block any effort to fix our health care system.

This is, of course, entirely untrue. Anybody can look at the American health care system — which is and continues to be the best in the world — and spot areas that are in need of improvement. Left and right differ in their views of what those problems are and how they are best dealt with. Republicans and conservatives only oppose “reform” outright if the term is limited to meaning the government-centric overhaul that the president and congressional Democrats are pushing.

Actual reform — a reduction in the dependence on third-party payers, increase in patient choice, reduction of costs, increase in personal freedom and control of health care dollars, added portability of health coverage, and reduced governmental interference — is almost universally supported on the right.

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The “Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009″ imposes a “surtax,” or income tax increase, on all Americans making $280,000 a year or more.

Under the bill, those making $280,000 ($350,000 for couples) will have their taxes increased by 1 percentage point, those making $400,000 ($500,000 for couples) by 1.5 percentage points, and those making more than $800,000 ($1 million for couples) by 5.4 percentage points.

This would make the top marginal federal tax rate 40.4% – the highest it has been since the Clinton years. If President Obama keeps his promise to let the Bush tax cuts expire (which he reiterated at a Portsmouth, NH town hall on Tuesday) that top marginal rate will increase to 45% – the highest it has been since the Reagan tax cuts of 1986.

If a review in 2013 by the Congressional Budget Office determines the health care overhaul has failed to save at least $175 billion, the bill provides for an automatic doubling of the tax increases on the lower two of those three incomes.

Further, with state income taxes rising across the country, this surtax and automatic 2013 increase would put the top combined federal-state income tax rates in over half of all states at 50% or more.

Source: HR 3200 §59C

The New Testament book of Matthew contains a well-known allegorical tale known as the “Parable of the Ten Talents.” In this story, Jesus told of a man who entrusted his property to three servants while he was away. One servant was given five silver talents; another two; and a third one. The first two servants put that which their master had given them to good use, and doubled his money while he was away. The third servant, who had been given but one talent, buried the valuable quantity of silver to preserve it until his master returned, neither risking its safety nor putting it to good use while its owner was away.

Upon his return, the two servants who had taken that which he had entrusted them with and used it wisely during his absence presented their master with their earnings. He replied to each, “Well done, my good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things.”

The third servant, who had merely protected that portion of his master’s wealth with which he had been entrusted, presented the single talent upon the man’s return. Seeing this, the master flew into a rage, chastising the “wicked, lazy servant” for allowing cowardice and irresponsibility to prevent his putting the master’s money to good use and ordering the servant to surrender his talent to the servant who had proved his resourcefulness and trustworthiness by doubling his master’s five talents.

The moral of this New Testament parable – be a good steward of a little and you will be trusted with more, but poor stewardship will lose you the privilege of being trusted with anything in the future – is recalled to mind by the federal government’s current attempt to take over the American health care system. The 33 years Medicare has been in existence have provided the federal government with an opportunity to demonstrate what type of steward its legislators and bureaucrats will be of a national health care program millions of Americans are trusting for their coverage and care.

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The arrogance of Democratic lawgivers is plain to see any time they step in front of a camera or microphone, but never is it on such full display as when they actually have to deal with their constituents.

Take, for example, this video of Texas Democrat Sheila Jackson-Lee, who is willing to allow her constituents the honor of being in her presence, just so long as they don’t gripe too much about the fact that she’s talking on her freaking cell phone while one of them is raising a Constitutional and ethical concern about legislation she is supporting in her constituents’ name in Congress.

Go to the four minute mark on the video below and watch until you can’t take any more. [UPDATE]: We’ve shaved it down to the relevant parts: below is the new video. - Moe Lane

And they wonder — they honestly wonder — why people are outraged?

Amazing.

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Under the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee’s “Affordable Health Choices Act,” local governments can apply for “community transformation” grants to build jungle gyms, sidewalks, bicycle paths, and grocery stores, to install streetlights, and to establish new farmers’ markets.

The dollar amount of these grants, and of the total “community transformation” earmark program, is left to the discretion of the Obama administration.

Cities can also apply for “community makeover” grants, which can provide them with up to $10 per resident in taxpayer dollars for “beautifying streets.”

Sen. Tom Coburn, MD (R-OK) sponsored an amendment to the HELP Committee bill that would have prevented any funds it made available from being used “to build, develop, or maintain sidewalks, parks, bike paths, or street lights.” The amendment was defeated by party-line vote.

The “Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009,” the House of Representatives’ health overhaul legislation, also contains an earmark for these grants. The House bill sets the amount available for their funding at $1.6 billion.

Sources: “Affordable Health Choices Act,” Title III, Subtitle C
HR 3200, § 3151

I don’t know if I’ve seen a worse public speaker in my lifetime more lionized for his public speaking ability than President Barack Obama (D-IL). The homage paid to him by pundits and anchors across the country for his supposedly unique combination of intelligence and eloquence is shown almost by the day to be as misplaced as effusive praise for Vice President Joe Biden’s (D-Slave State) thoughtful, precise manner of speaking would be.

The difference is, you don’t see people tripping all over themselves to praise Biden’s wisdomousness (to use a term from “Friends), or calling for him to make more public appearances as a counter to dipping personal and proposal popularity numbers. You do — inexplicably — see that with Obama, the architect of so many gaffes just one national campaign into his career (and six months into his presidency) that he already rivals the eight years of President Bush in quotable foibles.

“Fifty-seven states”? “Good morning, Sunshine”? “Ten thousand dead - and entire town destroyed”? Give an asthmatic “a breathayzer–inhalater–er, inhaler”?

Now the latest: Today, in defense of his unwavering determination to establish a government-run health insurance entity to compete with existing private insurers (which his Congressional allies are firmly behind as a means to government-run health care as the only option), Obama made a classic argument for…keeping the government out of the market.

The video:

The quote:

If you think about it, uh…uh…uh, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine.

[pause]

Right? Th-The, uh, no, they are! I mean, i-it’s-it’s the Post Office that’s always having problems.

That statement was followed by a long pause, during which one can only assume Obama was struggling to keep up with what he had just said and wondering why he left his Binky home for this appearance (and, perhaps, was wishing Joe Biden was there to take some attention away from his abject blunder).

“UPS and FedEx are doing just fine.” Yes, they are — and their history shows what real competition between private entities can do for a market.

“It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems.” Again, absolutely true; the Post Office has any number of problems, and the only reasons it is still in existence despite providing a level of service and reliability that would drive a private entity out of business are its monopoly on mail delivery and the fact that, because it is government-run, it can lose an unlimited amount of money and remain both in business and in the competition.

There’s no evidence whatsoever to suggest that the Post Office’s existence in the package-delivery marketplace has had the effect of forcing FedEx and UPS to improve their service or to become more competitive.

This brings up a very important question: Why, with the coverage equivalents of FedEx and UPS already serving the American people (at least, as well as they can under a mound of cost-increasing regulation), would we have any desire to hand over our health care to the same crew of failures that runs the Post Office, which even the President concedes is a failure?

The latest report from Rasmussen shows only 42% of Americans now support Congressional Democrats’ and President Obama’s proposal for a government-centric overhaul of the American health care system.

This poll shows that the decline in support for the President’s plan, which began in earnest in late June, has continued unabated. Two months ago, support for the Obama/Kennedy/Pelosi health care overhaul stood at 50%; in July, it fell to 47%, and now, in August, it is 42%.

American opposition to allowing government to overhaul the health care system remains 53%, identical to the late July number.

According to the report:

Sixty-seven percent (67%) of those under 30 favor the plan while 56% of those over 65 are opposed. Among senior citizens, 46% are strongly opposed.

Predictably, 69% of Democrats favor the plan, while 79% of Republicans oppose it. Yet while 44% of Democratic voters strongly favor the reform effort, 70% of GOP voters are strongly opposed to it.

Most notable, however, is the opposition among voters not affiliated with either party. Sixty-two percent (62%) of unaffiliated voters oppose the health care plan, and 51% are strongly opposed. This marks an uptick in strong opposition among both Republicans and unaffiliateds, while the number of strongly supportive Democrats is unchanged.

With the popularity of his health overhaul still dropping like it has a millstone tied around its neck, it’s no wonder the President — whose only experience with opposition is engineering union-backed astroturf campaigns for the purpose of preaching “truth to power” — is so anxious to shut off debate, and to have his supporters (and union goons) punch opponents back “twice as hard.”

Further, it’s no wonder that Obama pressed so hard to have a health overhaul bill passed this summer, before the American people could find out what his proposal consisted of, and before Congress had to face those in whose hands their electoral fates lie.

It looks like it’s going to be a long, hot August for the President and his Democratic supermajority in Congress.

The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee’s “Affordable Health Choices Act” contains an “employer mandate,” or a legal requirement that all American businesses with 25 or more employees offer health insurance to their workers.

The penalty for failing to comply with this mandate to offer employees health insurance is a $750 fine per full time worker per year.

In 2008, employer-provided insurance policies averaged $4,704 a year for individuals and $12,680 for families, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation (p. 2 here). This means employers would be able to save $4,000 per worker (or $12,000 per family) by ending their employee health benefit programs and simply paying the federal government the fine.

Source: Senate HELP Committee bill fact sheet, pp. 7-8.

House Resolution 3200, the “Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009,” fulfills President Barack Obama’s promise that “If you like your health plan, you can keep it” – technically.

Under the Democrat-sponsored bill, existing insurance policies are “grandfathered” into the new, overhauled national health care system, meaning that you have the option to keep your health coverage plan and provider even if they don’t conform to the new standards set by the federal government.

However, beginning the year this bill takes effect, individuals who leave their current insurer for any reason – whether it be moving to a different state or changing to a different employer – will be forced to purchase a new government-approved private plan or to enroll in the government-run, taxpayer-funded “public option” for their health coverage, rather than being allowed to choose coverage similar to that which they had before the advent of Obamacare.

Update: Source: HR 3200, § 102

Bob Hahn’s comment to my earlier post about Organizing/Obama for America’s call for supporters to flood legislative offices in an effort to create the appearance of support for the very unpopular health overhaul proposal got me thinking. Here’s Bob’s comment:

What if nobody cares?

This is a pretty risky maneuver by the White House. If it doesn’t work — if supporters do not show up in large numbers — it will leave the Members of Congress shaken by the thought that all those angry opponents at the Town Halls are real. After all, if the Democrats can’t gin up Astroturf from their list, why should we believe that the Republicans can?

I’m not convinced that an email list of hopeychangey elect-the-first-black-guy idealists are going to be all that excited about health care. This could be an epic fail.

This got me thinking in a way I hadn’t before. Today’s Organizing/Obama for America call-for-astroturfers is telling on its own. However, what is more telling is the fact that this is the third time in the last four days OFA has sent an email to its supporters calling on them to turn out in support of President Obama’s government health care overhaul.

Let me say that again: This is the third time in four days that Barack Obama, community organizer extraordinaire, has called on his legions to turn out in support of his policies. The first of those emails was purportedly from Obama himself, calling on supporters to turn out at “thousands of events” across the country; the second and third were calls to telephone and visit, respectively, legislative offices around the nation in an effort to show support for his badly flagging health overhaul proposal.

Because these emails come with relative frequency, I didn’t fully appreciate the temporal proximity of those three emails — or what that meant — until Bob’s comment forced me to consider it. Now, though, it is clear as day: the Obama administration, and its network of paid community organizers and agitators, is growing incredibly desperate for two reasons.

First, Barack Obama and his allies are losing the organizing battle at every turn to ordinary Americans who aren’t even being directed or paid — just taking an active interest in their government’s actions!

Second, despite repeated calls to action (including a declaration by the President himself that the opportunity to shut down debate on an issue, and to out-organize ordinary American citizens, was “the moment our movement was built for”) — again, three in four days — the Great Community Organizer simply can’t get his supporters to turn out, or his astroturf in place.

One call for supporter action is ordinary (even if it is odd to have a President making that call, particularly when it is paired with an order to mobilize against another portion of the American citizenry). Two calls is a bit odd. Three in four days, though, is utter desperation.

Barack Obama and his astroturfing band of “community organizers” are losing this battle, and they are losing it despite employing every tool at their disposal, from “community organizing,” to mobilizing union thugs to physically harm dissidents, to attempting to silence political opponents by calling on Americans to turn in their fellow citizens to the government for political disagreement.

That’s one encouraging thought. The unencouraging counter to that, though, is this: what does a President whose only experience is as a community organizer, manufacturing outrage and threatening opponents with physical violence (and acting in accordance with the Chicago Way, do when all legal means at his fingertips of enacting his agenda fail? That is a question we may see answered sooner rather than later.

As ordinary citizens across the country continue to ratchet up their level of interest and activity in the legislative process, President Obama and his campaign arm, Organizing (formerly “Obama”) For America, are struggling to cope with the tufts of grass sprouting up in the midst of their carefully astroturfed national field.

Last week, in what may have been the first instance of an American government officially calling on one group of American citizens to protest against, “get in [the] faces” of, and shout down another group of their own countrymen, President Obama authorized his campaign arms, the DNC and Organizing for America, to call opponents of his health overhaul plan a “dangerous mob” and to encourage supporters to counter (violently, if necessary) reasonable demonstrations and to put a stop to their questioning of elected officials.

Obama followed this up by sending an email via OFA in which he declared the health care reform debate “the moment [his] movement was built for” and called on his remaining campaign supporters to attend “thousands of events” across the country to crowd civic-minded Americans out of public events and to create, through organized efforts, the appearance of actually-nonexistent support for his extremely unpopular health overhaul.

The White House also put out a request for its supporters to turn in any of their fellow citizens who voiced concerns with President Obama’s $1 trillion health care overhaul to the White House — even if those concerns were simply spoken in what the White House called “casual conversation.”

Today, in an additional effort to create the appearance that the proposal is far more popular than it is among the voting public, OFA director Mitch Stewart called on Obama supporters to flood their Representatives’ district offices in support of Obamacare.

The text of the email is below:

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With well over half of America firmly in opposition to the Obama/Kennedy/Pelosi health overhaul plan, Democrats are grasping at anything they can possibly find to reassure themselves that they are still both right and representative of the “collective American will” on this and myriad other issues.

To that end, Jen O’Malley Dillon, executive director of the Democratic National Committee, sent an email to supporters this afternoon that is virtually dripping with desperation. Called “5 Facts About the Anti-Reform Mobs,” Dillon’s email is a frantic effort to reassure the shrinking, increasingly-fringe minority that actually support’s the President’s debt-growing and government-expanding programs that, against all evidence, they are the true majority on this issue and the opponents of their increasingly-unpopular proposals are an angry, paid, fringe “mob.”

Dillon wrote:

There’s been a lot of media coverage about organized mobs intimidating lawmakers, disrupting town halls, and silencing real discussion about the need for real health insurance reform.

The truth is, it’s a sham. These “grassroots protests” are being organized and largely paid for by Washington special interests and insurance companies who are desperate to block reform. They’re trying to use lies and fear to break the President and his agenda for change.

Health insurance reform is about our lives, our jobs, and our families — we can’t let distortions and intimidation get in the way. We need to expose these outrageous tactics, and we’re counting on you to help. Can you read these “5 facts about the anti-reform mobs,” then pass them along to your friends and family?

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Update: “The RNC is inciting angry mobs to shout out legitimate discussion at public events across the country and now they want to ignore people who deplore their tactics,” said DNC spokesman Brad Woodhouse about the DNC’s failed effort to incite angry mobs to flood the RNC with phone calls.

*       *      *

This is clever:

Republicans played a trick on Democrats today by redirecting angry telephone calls coming into their switchboard to the Democratic National Committee, CNN reports.

Earlier this morning, the DNC released a web video accusing the GOP of inciting mob activity.

“At the end of the video, the DNC instructs people to call the Republican National Committee to express outrage. Callers who dial the RNC’s main number to voice their concern about the DNC’s charges are told to press 1, which sends them to the DNC’s main switchboard.”

The emphasis on that deliciously ironic pair of phrases is mine. In the name of countering what they claim is the GOP’s inexcusable “incit[ement of] mob activity,” the Democrats did what they always do: stir up the masses and, yes, incite mob activity in opposition to the GOP.

Whoever the clever RNC staffer was who thought to redirect those calls right back to the source of the outrage — the DNC — deserves a free lunch and a letter of commendation. That was freaking awesome.

As President Obama called on his activists around the country to attend “thousands of events this month” in an effort to convince legislators that they, not the 55% of voters who oppose the Obama/Kennedy/Pelosi health care overhaul proposals, represent the majority of Americans (or, as a DailyKos diarist put it, “the collective will of the American people”), the Democratic National Committee was releasing an ad decrying the Obamacare-opposing “mob” as a bunch of Limbaugh-loving, Bible-carrying, extremist “birther” sheeple.

The ad is below:

Interestingly, the same crowd that is currently spending time and money to organize a campaign denigrating the “mob’s” dissent spent the last 8 years proclaiming such “mob” actions to be the quintessential example of Constitutionally-protected, God-given Freedom of Speech. This includes the current President, who spent that time and the decades before it acting as a professional rabble-rousing astroturfer (something that makes his sensitivity to such tactics understandable, but his apparent inability to recognize real dissent and outrage, rather than its manufactured counterpart, more than a bit puzzling).

As Jim Geraghty wrote this morning in a post titled “When More Than Half Dislike Your Ideas, It’s More Than ‘The Right-Wing Base’“:

I think the DNC — and Democrats, and the Obama administration — are on the verge of making a serious error by dismissing folks who show up at constituent meetings as “the mob.” …Skepticism of this health care plan goes way, way beyond “the right wing Republican base.” Alternatively, the right wing Republican base now amounts to a bit more than half of the voting public. …In the face of numbers like these, what do Democrats gain from a message like this[?]

Beyond being a whiplash-inducing reversal of position from the last 8 years (remember Hillary Clinton screeching “WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO DEBATE AND DISAGREE WITH ANY ADMINISTRATION!”?), the left’s change of position on both free speech and community organizing has negated what they portrayed as President Obama’s strongest qualification for the office (which isn’t saying much, given his overall lack of qualifications): his experience as a community organizer.

Even more striking is the fact that those the DNC and Obama now insultingly claim are organizing and provoking the angry “mob” are, to use Obama campaign rhetoric from just last year, doing the same work Jesus did when He was on the earth.

It’s often striking to consider the swiftness of the people’s reversal on Jesus Himself, from a king’s entrance on Palm Sunday to condemnation and crucifixion just days later. With the Democrats’ sudden 180° on the actions of those they compared to Jesus just months ago, we have a living, current example of just how such a change can happen.

The former Community Organizer is at it again. Not content to request that any who question his health care proposal online or “in casual conversation” be reported to the White House by their fellow citizens, the Astroturfer in Chief is seeking to rally his remaining foot soldiers in an effort to out-demonstrate and out-protest the regular Americans who have had enough of the trillions in spending added, and the choices and decision-making freedom lost, under the Obama administration.

In an email sent via his permanent campaign organization, Organizing for America, and titled “This is the moment,” Obama said the following:

This is the moment our movement was built for.

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If you see anybody publicly opposing President Obama’s plan to implement a government-centric overhaul of the health care system, the White House wants you to report that person (or persons) ASAP.

From the White House website:

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

Emphasis added. Of course, as we’ve seen in the health care debate to date, the term “disinformation” is used by the Obama White House as a catchall to describe any opposition to the President’s push for single-payer, government-run health care — meaning the White House wants to be informed of any forwarded emails or blog posts or any “casual conversations” that could be taken as opposition to their health care overhaul plan.

The White House has, as yet, offered no explanation of what it is they plan to do with the tips on policy opposition they hope to receive from citizen informers.

Interestingly, as Jake Tapper pointed out on Twitter this morning, the title of that post on the White House is a quote from John Adams’ 1770 “Argument in Defense of the Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials.”

(h/t Jon Henke)

UPDATE: As Erick, one of RedState’s resident lawyers, points out here, this program may go beyond sinister and actually be a violation of current U.S. law.

Further, flag@whitehouse.gov is not currently subject to Freedom of Information Act requests — something a freedom-loving legislator (Jim DeMint? Tom Coburn? Paul Ryan? Eric Cantor?) should seek to correct at his or her earliest convenience.

As the Senate Finance Committee takes its health care overhaul negotiations into the August recess, President Obama and key Senate negotiators are still struggling to find a way to afford the flagging health care overhaul proposal’s trillion dollar price tag. Their latest proposal, a new tax on so-called “gold-plated, Cadillac” health insurance policies, is receiving broad support from legislators and administration officials who see it as yet another opportunity to pay for an expansion of government by soaking the “rich” – a perception that is, thanks in large part to existing government policies, incredibly wrong.

The term “Cadillac” has been used for years to refer to health insurance policies that cover an inordinate number of unnecessary treatments and procedures. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), ranking minority member of the Senate Finance Committee and the Republican most closely working with the Democratic majority to pass President Obama’s health overhaul, said negotiators are “taking an intense look at” the proposal as a way of raising revenues to offset the $1 trillion the Finance overhaul bill is expected to cost.

Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME), also a Finance Committee member, called the idea a “practical option” for “creating disincentives for the most expensive [health insurance] policies,” and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) said his proposal to tie the maximum permitted coverage to the average level of benefits provided federal employees, and to tax the health insurance of those whose policies cost or cover more, is “gaining support” in the Senate.

This is being shopped to the public as just another tax on the super-wealthy, with Obama administration officials pointing to the “$40,000-a-year health insurance policies” carried by a handful of top Wall Street executives as examples of such unnecessarily luxurious coverage. However, a tax on “Cadillac” health insurance policies would end up disproportionately affecting middle- and lower-income Americans across the board, as well as the entire insured populations of several states.
The reason for this is the profusion of mandatory minimum coverages state governments require to be included in health insurance policies sold within their states’ borders. This results in residents being forced into uniformly high-priced, coverage-heavy “Cadillac” insurance policies as a result of state law, not their own choice.

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