Barack Obama may be one of the smartest men to occupy the White House. So why is he oblivious to what his own wife is talking about?

Surely, in proposing a provision allowing the federal government the power to block health insurance premium hikes, he ignores first lady Michelle Obama’s own campaign, announced this very month, to fight the scourge of obesity that afflicts a third of American adults and 17 percent of their children.

Crafted as part of a White House health care plan that reconciles elements of the House and Senate bills, this provision calls for a federal rate hike authority to study proposed health insurance premiums and advise the secretary of health and human services on whether they should be allowed or denied. Which might sound terrific. But study this one closely. Our experience is almost every time political forces get involved in private enterprise, it’s bad for private enterprise. Deadly, even.

It’s convenient to portray the insurance industry as bogeymen — they’re as maligned as journalists, lawyers and politicians these days. But the fact is insurance companies must base premium rates on their losses and the subsequent projections of risks based on trends suggested by those losses.

Next time you’re in an emergency waiting room, look at those around you. How many are overweight? As the first lady’s campaign makes abundantly clear, obesity is an all-American problem — and failure to address it, both in our children and ourselves, means yet higher risks of diabetes, stroke and heart attack, not to mention other problems.

Are these the fault of the insurance companies? Or, rather, is this provision a case of Democrats, scrambling to save an embattled health care plan, trying to strike a populist note unworthy of the debate raging over health care reform?

If rates are increasing, it’s for a lot of reasons besides insurance company profits, which are far lower than those for other industries. For instance, UnitedHealth Group over the past three years averaged a 5 percent profit margin. Humana Inc. averaged a meager 2.6 percent.

Other factors spur health insurance premiums to rise, including the simple fact Americans are living longer. Ultimately, though, the culprit is the steady rise of medical costs and the lack of incentives for consumers to control costs by improving their health.

Even insurance companies decry huge jumps in rates. They know they risk driving off the healthy consumers, leaving only the sickest. That’s no sure path to long-term success — and neither is the federal government’s ignoring the real problems in health care and venting its wrath on easy-to-vilify insurance companies nationwide.