Note: Families won’t just be fined $3,800 for failing to purchase health insurance. No, they’ll be fined $3,800 for failing to buy the type of health insurance the government wants them to purchase.

Washington doesn’t like the type of health insurance you’ve purchased to cover your family? Get ready for a $3,800 fine. Buy the product the government wants you to or face punishment. HopenChange, baby!

A bipartisan group of senators huddled in the afternoon to decide whether to move forward on an overhaul plan that Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D., Mont.) began circulating over the weekend. The plan includes some of the stiffest penalties Congress has proposed for Americans who don’t carry health insurance coverage.

Sen. Baucus emerged from a meeting with the six-member bipartisan group saying he had given his colleagues until 10 a.m. Wednesday to provide feedback on his draft. The group will meet again Wednesday afternoon in an attempt to come up with an agreement before Mr. Obama’s address.

Under the plan, people who earn between 100% and 300% of the poverty level (or between about $22,000 a year and $66,000 a year for a family of four) would face fees ranging from $750 to $1,500 a year.

For taxpayers with incomes above 300% of poverty, the penalty starts at $950 a year and reaches as high as $3,800 for families. Nearly 12 million people fit in this category, according to the National Institute for Health Care Management.

So instead of a flat-out public option, Baucus has crated legislation that punishes your family if you don’t purchase the exact type of health insurance Congress decides your family requires. Under this legislation, you’re no longer capable of deciding what coverage is best for your family. The government will be doing that from now on.

How exactly does the federal government have the authority to order Americans to purchase an insurance policy they don’t want to purchase? Who knows. The states have been able to mandate auto insurance due to vehicles traveling on public roads, but we’re talking about state powers in that case — not federal powers. Then again, unconstitutionality hasn’t stopped this Congress or White House thus far.

The worst part of this is who controls the mandate: The Internal Revenue Service. You’ll have to provide the IRS with proof from the previous tax year that you’ve purchased health insurance for your family. If the IRS doesn’t consider what you’ve purchased adequate, prepare for the $3,800 fine.

We’re handing your right to purchase the health insurance you deem suitable, your right to determine what’s best for your family, to the Internal Revenue Service. As I said before, HopenChange.