Things between Congress and Wellpoint have escalated beyond finger pointing and into serious public condemnation over Anthem Blue Cross - a subsidiary of Wellpoint - and its planned hikes in individual health insurance premiums.

In some cases these hikes are predicted to be as high as 39% in the coming year.

In response the health care article at the Wall Street Journal says that federal and state investigations have been launched, and that "the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations plans to hold hearings later this month" in which Wellpoint's Chief Executive will be called upon to justify such a massive hike in rates for individual health insurance.

With more than 800,000 peope in that pool, Wellpoint stands to make a lot of money in an economy already struggling to make ends meet.

Anthem Blue Cross claims that the rising costs of health care and treatments, combined with a smaller than average number of enrollees means that premiums must go up.

But with President Obama using Anthem's price hikes to justify the need for health care reform, no one wants to let the premiums go up without a darn good explanation.

Individual health insurance is already more expensive than group health insurance, and by hiking up the premiums thousands of Californians wouldn't be able to keep up on their premiums.