Democracy Now! - 7/16/09 - Wendell Potter, Congress on the Health Industry Payroll (part 2 of 2)

"They Dump the Sick to Satisfy Investors": Insurance Exec Turned Whistleblower Wendell Potter Speaks Out Against Healthcare Industry

As the debate over healthcare reform intensifies on Capitol Hill, we spend the hour with a former top insurance executive whos now exposing the industrys dirty secrets. Wendell Potter once served as the head of corporate communications at CIGNA, one of the nations largest health insurance companies. We speak to Potter about his own transformation from industry mouthpiece to whistleblower, the healthcare industrys extensive PR and lobbying machine, the campaign to discredit Michael Moores film Sicko, and the insurance industrys most pressing task: the fight against a public option, let alone a single-payer system.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• 090716potterUSA2
• 2

[MyImago]

Good Video:

"According to the Economist the total US spend on health care is 15.4% of GDP including both state and private. With that it gets 2.6 doctors per 1,000 people, 3.3 hospital beds and its people live to an average age of 78.2. As a whole Europe spends 9.6% of GDP on health care, has 3.9 doctors per 1,000 people, 6.6 hospital beds and live until they are 81.15 years old. The US has the most expensive health care system that seems not to be effective, which is very bizarre indeed.

[Jinkys8]

Excellent observations. I wonder why we just don't copy the best rated systems in the world, or tailor fit them? The propaganda war seems to be on the side of those who do not want change - I have heard some republicans say that they do want change, but just not the plan as outlined by the President. Of course there are these silly ads on T.V. telling half-truths or worse, but I was hoping our citizens would be more intelligent than that...

[jeffreydes]

(US Postal Service, continued) They move more pieces in a day than FedEx does in a year. And even with that volume, when's the last time you actually had a letter lost in the mail? Personally I don't recall one. You like to hold them up as the poster boy of government inefficiency, but it just doesn't pass the smell test.

[jeffreydes]

Sure, let's talk about the US Postal Service. They maintain an office in every podunk hamlet and remote outpost in the country, they move 703 million letters and parcels each day, delivering at relatively the same time to your front door 6 days a week, provide free shipping materials for many of their services, and will deliver a letter from Key West Florida to Barrow Alaska for 42¢. Can FedEx or UPS do that?

[tom474e]

And... Im sick and tired of health insurance companies eating up my 3% raise every year. I get a raise and it all goes to pay for increased premiums... And thats not to mention a $500 deductable ....

[tom474e]

Yes the private insurance companies are in buisness to get more of your premium dollar for CEOs and profits, and spend the least amount on the patients care as possible. Its called Medical Loss Ratio.

[woggmogg]

What's the bottom line? They ration health care so they can save a buck. Imagine that! Your life in their (government) eyes is worth 1 buck!

[woggmogg]

Lets go into a more viable examples than documented statistics that are partial and do not paint the actual picture. Let's take the post office or the VA, are both those organizations run with any kind of efficiency? Ask yourself, does government run businesses that are advantageous only to themselves good for the national economy, when private sectors cannot compete and it looks something like Hitler's Fascist Germany?