Obama in final healthcare bill push

The US president has criticised health insurance companies in the country for raising their premiums and denying coverage to the critically ill. Addressing a rally in Philadelphia on Monday, Barack Obama called on the Democratic Party to back his healthcare bill, accusing some companies of dropping "more people's coverage when they're sick and need it most". "The other day, on a conference call organised by Goldman Sachs, an insurance broker told Wall Street investors that [health] insurance companies know they will lose customers if they keep raising premiums," Obama said. "But since there's so little competition in the insurance industry, they're OK with people being priced out of health insurance because they'll still make more by raising premiums on the customers they have. "They will keep doing this for as long as they can get away with it."