Politics

Insurance Industry Whistleblower Wendell Potter: ?Americans Need To Be Alert?

By Karina

Today, Rules Chair Louise Slaughter met and held a press conference with Wendell Potter, a former CIGNA Vice President who left the insurance industry after a 20 year career. Potter has since become a whistleblower, testifying before a Senate committee in June about insurance company practices such as hiking up premiums for small businesses and cutting people?s coverage off altogether if they make minor mistakes or omissions in their application paperwork.

At today’s press conference, Wendell Potter talked about the insurance industry “dirty tricks” Americans can expect to see as America’s Affordable Health Choices Act moves through Congress, including “industry-funded front groups” and “scare tactics.” Potter explained:

The industry has conducted duplicitous and well-financed PR and lobbying campaigns every time Congress has tried to reform our health care system–and how its current behind-scenes-efforts may well shape reform in a way that benefits Wall Street far more than average Americans. I noted that, just as they did 15 years ago when the insurance industry led the effort to kill the Clinton reform plan, it is using shills and front groups to spread lies and disinformation to scare Americans away from the very reform that would benefit them most. Make no mistake, the industry, despite its public assurances to be good-faith partners with the President and Congress, has been at work for months laying the groundwork for devious and often sinister campaigns to manipulate public opinion.

The industry goes to great lengths to keep its involvement in these campaigns hidden from public view. I know from having served on numerous trade group committees and industry-funded front groups, however, that industry leaders are always full partners in developing strategies to derail any reform that might interfere with insurers? ability to increase profits.

…With this history, you can rest assured that the insurance industry is up to the same dirty tricks, using the same devious PR practices it has used for many years, to kill reform this year, or even better, to shape it so that it benefits insurance companies and their Wall Street investors far more than average Americans.

Potter also discussed the tactics that the insurance industry will use to scare us:

Americans and the media need to pay close attention to the efforts insurers and their ideological buddies will undertake…they must realize that every time they hear that by creating a public insurance option, we will be heading down “the slippery slope toward socialism,” some insurance flack like I used to be wrote that, too.

Every time you hear about the shortcomings of what they call “government-run” health care, remember this: what we have now in this country, and what the insurers are determined to keep in place, is Wall Street-run health care. And know that for all practical purposes we already have one of the most insidious means of rationing care in the world?not by people we can hold accountable on election day but by insurance company accountants, underwriters and executives who are held accountable by a few wealthy investors and hedge fund managers who care far more about earnings per share than your health and well-being.

Chair Louise Slaughter concluded:

The industry has a vested interest in the status quo and protecting its profit margin. This is just what they did in 1993 the last time we tried to reform health care. The public must be aware that the industry is not going to willingly change the way it does things and I hope the public understands what?s at stake. As Wendell Potter said, these insurance companies do what?s good for Wall Street, not main street.

Watch video highlights of today’s press conference:

Wendell Potter’s full remarks: (more…)

Full post as published by The Gavel on August 12, 2009 (boomark / email).