President Barack Obama Monday intensified his attacks on health insurers and administration officials asked the industry to justify premium increases as the battle to reform America's expensive healthcare system entered its final stage.

Hitting the road to rally support for a healthcare overhaul, Obama offered some of his toughest criticism yet of an insurance industry which he said placed profits ahead of patients.

"Every year, they raise premiums higher and higher," Obama said at Arcadia University in Glenside, Pennsylvania. "They will keep doing this for as long as they can get away with it."

Obama shrugged off warnings of dire consequences in congressional elections in November for Democrats who support his healthcare plan and said failure would leave intact a broken $2.5 trillion healthcare system that is ravaged by greedy health insurers.

"These insurance companies have made a calculation," Obama said "They're okay with people being priced out of health insurance because they'll still make more by raising premiums on the customers they keep."

Turning up the heat, Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius sent a letter to top companies such as Aetna [ AET 40.83  -0.70 (-1.69%) ] and Wellpoint [ WLP 65.62  -0.46 (-0.70%) ] asking them to justify rate increases by making public information about costs, enrollment changes and other details.

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