The White House on Monday strongly criticized a report from the health-insurance industry that said Senate healthcare legislation would lead to increases in annual insurance costs of as much as $4,000 by 2019. The report for the industry trade group “America's health Insurance Plans” challenged Democratic plans to overhaul the $2.5 trillion healthcare system. A top goal of President Barack Obama in seeking to reform health care is to limit costs that have surged in recent decades. The health-insurance industry report, posted over the weekend, said costs would increase for Americans rather than decline. “Health reform could have a significant impact on the cost of private health-insurance coverage,” the report concluded. The White House had sought to work with the industry, but the new report was a clear indication that the strategy was no longer effective. “This is a self-serving analysis from the insurance industry, one of the major opponents of health-insurance reform,” said Reid Cherlin, a White House spokesman. The release of the report comes as the Senate Finance committee plans to vote Tuesday on its healthcare plan after budget analysts said the legislation would meet Obama's goal of reducing the federal budget deficit over 10 years. Cherlin aid the insurance group's report was timed to coincide with the Senate committee's vote. “It comes on the eve of a vote that will reduce the industry's profits. It is hard to take [the report] seriously,” he said. According to Cherlin, the health-insurance industry's analysis “completely ignores critical policies that will lower costs for those that have insurance, expand coverage and provide affordable health-insurance options to millions of Americans who are priced out of today's health-insurance market or are locked out by unfair insurance company practices.”
