US insurance lobby attacks Senate plan

For months they looked like an odd-couple: Obama’s administration, wanting to reform the US’s maddeningly complicated and expensive health care system, and the health insurance lobby itself, whose interest was that things stay exactly as they are. And yet, for months, they appeared to be on the same page. Well, no more. On the eve of the US Senate’s crucial vote on the health care reform bill, the gloves are off, with the insurance lobby publishing the PWC report that warns the country of dire consequences should the bill be voted in by the Senate. Among other things, it predicts that the average household’s premiums will go up to $17,200 by 2013 should Senate vote Yes, compared to $15,500 should things remain the same (they’re currently at $12,300). Democrats called the report a “hatchet job, pure and simple”, designed to sow fear before the crucial vote. Well, the report’s timing indeed looks very precise…