Insurance Group Bashes Baucus Bill With Report

White House betrayed by 'hatchet job' predicting cost hikes
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 12, 2009 7:38 AM CDT
Insurance Group Bashes Baucus Bill With Report
Kent Conrad talks to Max Baucus during a Senate Finance Committee hearing on health care reform legislation, Oct. 1, 2009.   (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

The White House is steamed this morning over a report, sponsored by the insurance industry, saying the Senate Finance Committee’s health care bill would cause premiums and costs to rise. The report was commissioned by America’s Health Insurance Plans, an industry group that has until now supported reform publicly, while fighting to kill certain ideas, like the public option, behind the scenes, Politico notes. It claims the bill would, by 2019, cost a family $4,000 more in premiums than projected.

AHIP told the White House and Finance Committees last week that they were “a ways away from doing an analysis,” according to one administration source. So “there is a feeling among White House officials that they were misled.” A Finance Committee spokesman called the report “a health insurance company hatchet job, plain and simple.” The report threatens to affect tomorrow’s committee vote on the bill. (More America's Health Insurance Plans stories.)

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