This morning, former Clinton Administration Deputy Treasury Secretary Roger Altman discussed an array of issues on CNBC. Asked by Erin Burnett whether taxes on health care companies to pay for reform will be passed on to consumers through higher prices for health insurance, Altman candidly replied (at about the 5:30 mark):

Well I think everyone knows that there’ll be a high percentage of pass-along on that. I don’t really think there’s a lot of secrets on it. Look, they’ve had a very difficult time figuring out how to pay for this. It still isn’t clear how the 900 billion will entirely be financed. It’s just murderously difficult to do that.

Altman’s right and honest. If only President Obama were so honest about the real costs of greater health care regulation.

Instead, we hear from the president, as we did in his weekly address, that “[I]f you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have insurance … nothing in my plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have.”

In Mr. Obama’s view, a change in price doesn’t count as “change,” though it’s the change that will likely impact people the most.

Meanwhile, President Obama has decided that if he can’t persuade Americans to support him, he might as well scare them. Building on his ominous statement last Wednesday night that losing health insurance “can happen to anyone,” the president told an audience in Minneapolis:

Today, we received more disturbing news. A new report from the Treasury Department found that nearly half of all Americans under 65 will lose their health coverage at some point over the next 10 years.

In case you didn’t get the message: “We’ve got to do something because it can happen to anyone. There but for the grace of God go I. It could happen to anyone.”

Seriously? “There but for the grace of God go I”? How long before he starts wearing mourning clothes?

“We’ve heard scare tactics instead of honest debate,” the president said in Minnesota. Indeed, we have.