Wendell Potter: Medical Insurance Companies Can Decide Who Lives and Dies, Parts 1-7

Single payer healthcare now!

Image by David Drexler via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

Trump and Pelosi Both Cater to Private Health Insurance – RAI with Wendell Potter (1/7)

TheRealNews on Apr 4, 2019

Trump’s “great healthcare plan” and opposition to Medicare for All’s “socialism” and Pelosi’s defense of the ACA and opposition to single-payer are both aimed at garnering support from the private insurance industry.

Continue reading

The Fear of Sicko: Wendell Potter Apologizes to Michael Moore

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/

Democracy Now!
Nov. 23, 2010

The Fear of Sicko: CIGNA Whistleblower Wendell Potter Apologizes to Michael Moore for PR Smear Campaign; Moore Says Industry Was Afraid Film Would Cause A ‘Tipping Point’ for Healthcare Reform

We host a joint interview with Academy Award-winning filmmaker Michael Moore and Wendell Potter, who was the head of corporate communications for the health insurance giant CIGNA when Moore’s film, Sicko, was released in 2007. Potter left the company in 2008 and has since become the industry’s most prominent whistleblower. In the interview, Potter apologizes for his role in the industry’s attack on Moore and the film.

via The Fear of Sicko: CIGNA Whistleblower Wendell Potter Apologizes to Michael Moore for PR Smear Campaign; Moore Says Industry Was Afraid Film Would Cause A ‘Tipping Point’ for Healthcare Reform

Continue reading

“The Insurance Industry Loves It” Whistleblower Wendell Potter on the Health Care Law by Greg Palast

by Greg Palast
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.gregpalast.com
22 March, 2010

Greg Palast conducted this interview with health insurance industry executive-turned-crusader Wendell Potter in the fall. The bill voted into law last night is the Senate bill Potter critiques. Potter, in the end, decided that the law is better than nothing. But listen up and get an earful of the real story: the insurance industry is secretly licking its chops over the new Health Care law.

Check out Palast’s original commentary, The S-Word and Dr. Kevorkian’s Accountant: Health care Rx from my socialist fire department.

Continue reading

Snowe Job? Insider Says Senator Is “Disingenuous Or Naive” by Greg Palast

by Greg Palast
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.gregpalast.com
Thursday 15 October 2009

exclusive for Truthout.org

Former insurance executive Wendell Potter tells Greg Palast, in an exclusive interview for Truthout.org, that “the system’s rigged” to kill off so-called “health cooperatives.” Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine cast the only Republican vote on the Senate Finance Committee for the Obama health care plan, but only on the condition that Democrats drop their demand for a “public option” insurer in favor of private doctor/hospital cooperatives.

Earlier today, Potter told Truthout.org that the Senator’s plan is “disingenuous or naive,” because, in most states, “the system’s rigged” to lock up all patients under one for-profit monopoly. While a publicly-funded insurer might succeed in forcing insurers to cut premium charges, Snowe’s cooperatives “don’t stand a snowball’s chance” of competing against the for-profit monopolies.

Continue reading

Health care Rx from my socialist fire department by Greg Palast

by Greg Palast
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.gregpalast.com
crossposted on t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed
Thursday 15 October 2009

Tell me where it hurts, Mr. President.

What’s killing you, Barack, is what’s killing us all: an evil germ called “Medical Loss Ratio.”

“Medical Loss Ratio” [MLR] is the fancy term used by health insurance companies for their slice, their take-out, their pound of flesh, their gross – very gross – profit.

The “MLR” is the difference between what you pay an insurance company and what that insurer pays out to doctors, hospitals and pharmacists for your medical care. Continue reading

Wendell Potter: An Absolute Gift To The Insurance Industry

Dandelion Salad

Think Progress
Sept 15, 2009

On the eve of the Senate Finance Committee’s release of its much anticipated health care plan, Wendell Potter — the insurance industry whistle blower and former communications director of health insurance giant Cigna — called the Baucus framework “an absolute gift to the industry.” “And if that is what we see in the legislation, [America’s Health Insurance Plans chief] Karen Ignagni will surely get a huge bonus,” Potter said at a briefing for reporters.

Continue reading

Countdown: To Help The White House Understand! + Wendell Potter

Bookmark and Share

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/

MoxNewsDotCom
August 19, 2009

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about “Olbermann Special Comment To Help The…“, posted with vodpod

***

Countdown – Wendell Potter – Who pays for how much health care

Continue reading

Health care reform: It’s all about money!

Bookmark and Share

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/

AlJazeeraEnglish
August 06, 2009

Fault Lines looks at the US health care system, expose its cracks, and uncover the forces that are spending millions of dollars every day to influence the debate over the US health care reform.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Pt 2 Continue reading

Wendell Potter: They Dump the Sick to Satisfy Investors

Bookmark and Share

Dandelion Salad

Democracy Now!
July 16, 2009

“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 who’s now exposing the industry’s dirty secrets. Wendell Potter once served as the head of corporate communications at CIGNA, one of the nation’s largest health insurance companies. We speak to Potter about his own transformation from industry mouthpiece to whistleblower, the healthcare industry’s extensive PR and lobbying machine, the campaign to discredit Michael Moore’s film Sicko, and the insurance industry’s most pressing task: the fight against a public option, let alone a single-payer system. [includes rush transcript]

Real Video Stream

Real Audio Stream

MP3 Download

video and transcript: “They Dump the Sick to Satisfy Investors”: Insurance Exec Turned Whistleblower Wendell Potter Speaks Out Against Healthcare Industry

see

Kucinich Opening Statement to Committee on America’s Affordable Health Choices Act

Bill Moyers Journal: Health Care Reform + Wendell Potter (must-see)