(Thumbnail image: The White House)

Health care is back on top of President Barack Obama's agenda as he criss-crosses the country to gain public support. Mr. Obama--and now Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius -- have increased their rhetoric against insurance companies, saying they need to be "reined in." 

MR. OBAMA: "The health care system has billions of dollars that should go to patient care and they're lost each and every year to fraud, to abuse, to massive subsidies that line the pockets of the insurance industry."

MS. SEBELIUS: "You will take the assests that you have and the influence and the bully pulpit that you have, and use it to start calling for comprehensive reform to pass."

The communications director at the White House Office of Health Reform tells MSNBC Sebelius' rhetoric to the insurance companies is a message that needed to be told.

"What the secretary was saying is to the insurance industry, 'Why don't you get on board for health insurance reform, that will first of all stabilize this market, stop these gyrating rate increases, and finally make sure that Americans will know that they can get affordable coverage that they can rely upon from year to year?'"  

CNN's senior political analyst Gloria Borger says the White House has purposefully made a strategy against the insurance companies.

"The insurance companies were at the table when this whole reform movement started. They were there back three years ago, but starting around July, the White House began to notice a change in its polling data, and it showed that the one way they could break through with the American public is to show the American public's anxiety over their health insurance rates, and so, suddenly, the insurance companies became the boogeymen."

In an interview with the Christian Science Monitor, a spokesman for the industry lobby group America's Health Insurance Plans points out one reason why insurance companies are not the source of the problem.

"For every dollar spent on health care in America, less than one penny goes toward health plan profits.... All the focus is on health insurance premiums with very little focus on the underlying medical costs that are driving those increases."

But a CBS correspondent says that might not be true -- pointing to what she calls a "stunning series of rate hikes" from private insurance companies across the country.

REPORTER: "Anthem's parent company Wellpoint made $380 million profit in just the fourth quarter last year, but executives argue, they have no choice but to raise rates. ... And listen to this -- according to Congress, Wellpoint has dozens of executives making more than a million dollars a year. They've spent millions of dollars on executive retreats, and they've made billions of dollars in profits."

A Fox News analyst agrees with lowering medical costs, telling Bill O'Reilly state governments are already in charge of insurance regulation -- and it should stay that way.

CROWLEY: "And the states try to make sure that the insurance companies are solvent so that they don't go belly-up. ... The bottom-line question here is not about how we regulate the insurance companies. The bottom line is about lowering costs, and nothing the Obama team and the Democrats have put out actually lowers costs. In fact, it explodes the deficit, it's going to cost the American taxpayer a lot more money, and not solve the underlying problem."

So, will stronger rhetoric against health insurance companies make a difference in health care reform?

Writer: Brandon Twichell