Insurance industry pushes back, gently

The leader of America's Health Insurance Plans, the insurance industry's trade group, pushed back today against recent comments made by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that insurers have been "immoral" and are the "villains" in the debate in Congress about overhauling health care.

"For a country that's trying to accomplish what it has failed to do for a century, pass health care reform, the same old Washington politics ... is a major step backward," the group's president and CEO, Karen Ignagni, said in a conference call with reporters. "This is the playbook of consultants, not of consensus..."

USA Today: Insurance industry pushes back, gently