Never pass up a chance to sit down or relieve yourself. -old Apache saying

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Meet Wendell Potter

The July 10 episode of The Bill Moyers Journal on PBS included a long interview with ex-CIGNA healthcare exec Wendell Potter.

After many years in the healthcare biz, Potter quit and is coming forward to help change the system. We need many more Wendell Potters, but this is a good start.

The healthcare industry is the elephant in the room. It's killing businesses, it's killing our economy, and it's killing people. The healthcare issue highlights the corrosive effect of big money in politics.

You should watch the program, and lend your voice to the healthcare debate.

from the PBS website...


Last month, testimony in front of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation by a former health insurance insider named Wendell Potter made news even before it occurred: CBS NEWS headlined: "Cigna Whistleblower to Testify." After Potter's testimony the industry scrambled to do damage control: "Insurers defend rescissions, take heat for lack of transparency."

In his first television interview since leaving the health insurance industry, Wendell Potter tells Bill Moyers why he left his successful career as the head of Public Relations for CIGNA, one of the nation's largest insurers, and decided to speak out against the industry. "I didn't intend to [speak out], until it became really clear to me that the industry is resorting to the same tactics they've used over the years, and particularly back in the early '90s, when they were leading the effort to kill the Clinton plan."

The full transcript is here, and the video of the interview is here.

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