As Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives scramble to fulfill President Obama's promise to reform healthcare in this county, they are leaning towards a tax surcharge on the highest wage earners.

Under the proposal emerging from the House Ways and Means Committee, the surtax would only apply to individuals with incomes of more than $200,000 for individuals or couples with incomes of more than $250,000.

We solidly agree with the president and much of Congress that healthcare reform is an absolute must. But placing a disproportionately large part of that burden on one sector of the population is unfair.

If everyone stands to benefit from some of the massive changes needed to ensure Americans have equal access to quality medical care, then everyone needs to pay for it. That's the whole idea behind socializing healthcare.

Strangely enough, what the Democrats are proposing is basically legitimizing how the system works now " those who have the ability to pay are subsidizing medical care costs for those who can't or won't pay, either through taxes for government programs or through higher costs medical businesses pass on to paying customers.

Clearly, that situation doesn't work and is unfair and is exactly what we are trying to move away from.

One of the Democrats taking part in the discussions said she prefers the larger surtax over the more complicated process of smaller tax adjustments. But Congress should not be making such sweeping decisions based on what is easiest for them to implement.

The president said some of those smaller revenue issues are still on the table " things like increasing taxes on soft drinks or eliminating a tax break drug companies get on advertising. We think the government needs to take a closer look at some of those ideas " is it really fair for drug companies to have a tax break on advertising?

Of course, Congress also needs to look at ways of more efficiently spending the money it has set aside for medical care and to work with health care providers to help keep costs down.

With all those possibilities, it seems clear House Democrats have options other than singling out one group of Americans to pay for healthcare for everyone.

The system needs to be reformed, but this proposal is not fair and it's certainly not the kind of "change" we hope to see in Washington.