The Obama Administration continued to impose pressure on health insurers Thursday, revealing that some companies planned double-digit rate increases while earning billions in profits and paying their bosses multimillion-dollar salaries.

"These massive increases are disturbing examples of the problems that make reforming our health insurance system more important than ever", posted the Department of Health and Human Services in it report.

A spokesman for the health insurance industry's trade group said the surge in the cost of medical care was propelling the increase in premiums, while the percentage of premiums going toward administrative costs and profits had registered a fall.

Healthcare spending in the United States is about $2.3 trillion annually, or about 16 percent of the U. S. economy.

Employers claim that the cost of providing health insurance for their workers is hampering their ability to compete against companies from other countries.

The administrative costs at insurance companies is revealed to grew faster than the amount spent on prescription drugs over the past decade, the report said, a trend expected to continue.