As Democrat leaders in Congress work at bridging the divide between the House and Senate versions of health care reform legislation, President Obama has voiced his support for taxing high-end health care plans to pay for some of the reform.

But we hardly call taxing health care to pay for health care a reform. There is something fundamentally immoral about placing the burden for covering everyone on those who are already covering themselves.

It’s like penalizing people with additional taxes for doing what they are supposed to — maintain good health insurance.

Granted, we do need to reform health care and medical insurance practices in this country. There are far too many working Americans who are unable to afford health care coverage or who do not have access to it.

And somehow, we are going to have to pay to equalize a health care system that has been allowed for years to slide further and further out of balance.

But Obama’s latest proposal is not the way to do it.

We have previously urged Congress to slow down the reform process and try to work out a compromise that is fair to all Americans, not just the one’s with inadequate health care coverage.

That’s a stand we maintain today.

Unfortunately, as we get closer to election time, the Democrats are only scrambling harder to push through some form of reform legislation — probably because there is a good chance they will lose at least some of their majority control in Congress.

But that should not be the primary factor here. Letting political ambitions dictate how the federal government is making decisions that will potentially affect every U.S. citizen is wrong.

This latest move is just one more example highlighting that argument. In fact, it goes against the very heart of what many people see as a core ideal of health care reform — let everyone have access to basic coverage and those who want better insurance can pay for it.

And it also overlooks another core component of reform — while we want to make sure everyone has access to coverage, we also need to do a better job of holding medical costs down.

To be clear, we are encouraged that Congress has at last seriously looked at dealing with our health care crisis, we just think the government needs to be careful how it implements the necessary reforms.