Reports are that Obamacare could raise average preimums by $4000 or more per family per annum. Up until now we have not heard much from the insurance companies in this whole debate. They’ve been willing to let their surrogates do most of the talking and have been fairly silent themselves (mostly because they are pretty unsympathetic to most Americans). This all changed today with the looming Obamacare vote scheduled to take place tomorrow in the Senate. The industry has hired accounting firm Price Waterhouse Cooper to do some analysis on the Baucus plan, and the results are . . . shocking to say the least.

The biggest result of the accounting audit is that the Baucus Plan/Obamacare, which purports to save money, will actually raise the average premiums for most American familys by $4000 per year.

After months of collaboration on President Obama’s attempt to overhaul the nation’s health-care system, the insurance industry plans to strike out against the effort on Monday with a report warning that the typical family premium in 2019 could cost $4,000 more than projected.

The critique, coming one day before a critical Senate committee vote on the legislation, sparked a sharp response from the Obama administration. It also signaled an end to the fragile detente between two central players in this year’s health-care reform drama.

Industry officials said they intend to circulate the report prepared by PricewaterhouseCoopers on Capitol Hill and promote it in new advertisements. That could complicate Democratic hopes for action on the legislation this week.

The White House’s response was it’s typical non-sequitor, stating:

“Those guys specialize in tax shelters,” said Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House Office of Health Reform. “Clearly this is not their area of expertise.”

Wait, the biggest argument that the White House can come up with is claiming that one of the largest, most respected accounting firms in the world only knows how to come up with tax shelters and they don’t know anything about accounting? Come on, do you guys have an actual response to this? Or, as Allah Pundit suggests, “We can compare that to the White House, whose expertise thus far has been in getting elected, and not much else — certainly not economics, military strategy, or governance.”

$4000 per year is nothing to sneeze at. I’m not sure about the rest of you, but with my budget there is no way I can take an extra $4000 per year hit in insurance premiums. Of course, the poor will be exempt from this, as they are from everything the government does, and the rich can afford to take this hit. So, guess who gets to fund this debactle and who gets hurt by it the most? Yes, the middle-class. Clearly the whole point of this exercise is that they want to make any private insurance so expensive that only the super rich can afford it. Then the Democrats will ride to the rescue with a European style, single-payer health insurance plan and we’ll be well on our way to socialism. Ain’t life grand.

P.S. Please call, write, and e-mail both of your senators today to register your feelings, tomorrow is the big vote.