The president’s legislation aims to bridge differences between the bills adopted by the House and Senate late last year, and to frame his debate with Republicans over health policy at a televised meeting on Thursday.
By focusing on the effort to tighten regulation of insurance costs, a new element not included in either the House or Senate bills, Mr. Obama is seizing on outrage over recent premium increases of up to 39 percent announced by Anthem Blue Cross of California and moving to portray the Democrats’ health overhaul as a way to protect Americans from profiteering insurers.
Congressional Republicans have long denounced the Democrats’ legislation as a “government takeover” of health care. And while they are likely to resist any expansion of federal authority over existing state regulators, they will face a tough balancing act at the meeting with the president to avoid appearing as if they are willing to allow steep premium increases like those by Anthem.
Republican leaders had not formally accepted the president’s invitation to the meeting. But the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said on Sunday that he would attend. “I intend to be there, and my members will be there and ready to participate,” Mr. McConnell said on Fox News.
The president’s new provision also seemed to offer Republicans an opening for a new line of criticism — that Mr. Obama and Democrats are anticipating the possibility of hefty price increases for health insurance even after their big legislation is adopted.
Mr. McConnell said the president, in proposing a new version of the Democrats’ legislation, seemed to prejudging the outcome of the session. “If they are going to lay out the plan they want to pass four days in advance,” he said on Fox, “What are we discussing on Thursday?”
The White House has held details of Mr. Obama’s bill extremely tight, leaving even top Democrats in Congress anxiously awaiting the text to be released Monday. But administration officials said it would incorporate legislation proposed last week by Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, in response to the Anthem increases. Officials said it would “help make sure that people are not unfairly subject to arbitrary premium hikes.”
Anthem, California’s largest for-profit insurer, has announced premium increases for nearly 700,000 customers, citing the soaring costs of medical care and the effects of a weak economy in which many younger and healthier people are dropping insurance. But the increases, far outpacing the rate of medical inflation, led to outrage among officials in Sacramento and Washington.
The Obama administration has sought to portray the situation as a warning of what could happen to many more Americans if Congress does not act to overhaul the health system.
The president’s bill would grant the federal health and human services secretary new authority to review, and to block, premium increases by private insurers, potentially superseding state insurance regulators. The bill would create a new Health Insurance Rate Authority, made up of health industry experts that would issue an annual report setting the parameters for reasonable rate increases based on conditions in the market.
Officials said they envisioned the provision taking effect immediately after the health care bill is signed into law.
The legislation would call on the secretary of health and human services to work with state regulators to develop an annual review of rate increases, and if increases are deemed “unjustified” the secretary or the state could block the increase, order the insurer to change it, or even issue a rebate to beneficiaries.
The new rate board would be composed of seven members, including consumer representatives, an insurance industry representative, a physician and other experts like health economists and actuaries, the White House said. The board’s annual report would offer guidance to the public and states on whether rate increases should be approved.
But the focus on rate increases is also spotlighting questions about whether the Democrats’ plans do enough to control rising health costs. Anthem and other insurers say they do not.
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