The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported on Monday that if the health-care legislation comes through, most of the Americans buying heath insurance through their employers will end up paying their current level of premiums for the coverage.

The report specified that for an average of 134 million Americans insured through big employers, there would not be any rise in the premiums. Rather, they would have to pay nearly 3 percent less premium, compared to what they would otherwise be paying in case the Congress does not pass the Obama administration’s health-care overhaul proposal.

In addition, subsidies will bring about a 59 percent reduction in costs for nearly 18 million people purchasing their own insurance.

Hailing the CBO report, President Barack Obama’s spokesman, Dan Pfeiffer, said on the White House blog that the legislation will provide “welcome relief on costs.”

Meanwhile, expressing a view contrary to the CBO report, Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for America's Health Insurance Plans group, said that the health-care proposal – which calls for a $848
-billion expenditure over the next decade for adding over 30 million people to insurance rolls – would adversely affect a number of American families, whose premiums will rise.

Zirkelbach said: “This is the latest report to confirm that the current health care reform proposal fails to bend the health care cost curve and will result in double-digit premium increases for millions of Americans.”