Who Pays for ObamaCare? What Donald Berwick and Joe the Plumber both understand.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Among Donald Berwick's greatest rhetorical hits is this one: "any health-care funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized and humane must—must—redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and less fortunate." Count that as one more reason that President Obama made Dr. Berwick a recess appointee to run Medicare and Medicaid rather than have this philosophy debated in the Senate.

We are also learning that "spreading the wealth," as Mr. Obama famously told Joe the Plumber in 2008, is the silent intellectual and political foundation of ObamaCare. We say silent because Democrats never admitted this while the bill was moving through Congress.

But only days after the bill passed, Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus exulted that it would result in "a leveling" of the "maldistribution of income in America," adding that "The wealthy are getting way, way too wealthy, and the middle-income class is left behind." David Leonhardt of the New York Times, who channels White House budget director Peter Orszag, also cheered after the bill passed that ObamaCare is "the federal government's biggest attack on economic inequality" in generations.

An April analysis by Patrick Fleenor and Gerald Prante of the Tax Foundation reveals how right they are. ObamaCare's new "health-care funding plan" will shift some $104 billion in 2016 to Americans in the bottom half of the income distribution from those in the top half. The wealth transfer will be even larger in future years. While every income group sees a direct or indirect tax increase, everyone below the 50th income percentile comes out a net beneficiary.

This is why Obama likes to endorse socialists.