Here’s A Guy Who Deserves a Prize!
By Pat Racimora on October 9, 2009 at 8:45 PM in Current Affairs, Health Care
Never heard of him? Well, Wendell Potter Should be a Household Name!
If you care about your health and the health and well-being of your loved ones, you’ve got to know this fellow by name.
Wendell Potter started speaking out against his old company, health insurance giant Cigna, last June and has been busy blowing the whistle hard ever since. As the former head of corporate communications, he knew what was going on in the health care for-profit business, and he realized that it was enough to make us all sick.
So, what does Potter think of the most recent Senate’s bill? He calls it a “gift to the insurance industry.” So much for our elected officials being on our side.
Here are some revealing quotes from his most recent testimony before the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee:
In the weeks since my June 24 testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, I have expressed hope at every opportunity that this indeed might be the year Congress will enact legislation to reform our health care system in ways that will truly benefit Americans for generations to come.
But I have also expressed concern that if Congress goes along with the so-called “solutions” the insurance industry says it is bringing to the table and acquiesces to the demands it is making of lawmakers, and if it fails to create a public insurance option to compete with private insurers, the bill it sends to the president might as well be called the Insurance Industry Profit Protection and Enhancement Act.
And he should know what he is talking about—he used to be one of “them.” Potter continues:
While the reforms proposed in various bills before Congress would seemingly restrict insurance companies’ ability to put investors’ needs over those of consumers, Members must realize that provisions of some proposals, including the Baucus Framework, would actually drive millions more Americans, including many who currently have access to comprehensive coverage, into the ranks of the underinsured.
And why might that be?
The insurance industry is insistent on being able to retain what it calls “benefit design flexibility.” Those three words seem innocuous and reasonable, but if legislation that reaches the president grants insurers the flexibility they claim they must have, and requires all of us to buy coverage from them, millions more of us will have little alternative but to buy policies that appear to be affordable but which will be prove to be anything but affordable if we become seriously ill or injured.
As a consequence, these proposals would do little to increase affordable coverage for those currently insured, or stop the rise in medical bankruptcy. They would, however, ensure that a huge new stream of revenue–much of it from taxpayers who would finance the needed subsidies for people too poor to buy coverage on their own–would flow–”gush” might be a more appropriate word–to insurance companies. And much of that new revenue would ultimately go right into the pockets of the Wall Street investors who own them.
And what does he think of a Public Option?
Over the past several weeks, I have repeatedly told audiences around the country that the public option should not just be an “option” to be bargained away at the behest of insurance companies who are pouring money into Congress to defeat substantial and essential reforms. A public option must be created to provide true choice to consumers or reform will fail to truly fix the root of the severe problems that have been caused in large part by the greedy demands of Wall Street.
The Baucus plan, would create a government-subsidized monopoly for the purchase of bare-bones, high-deductible policies that would truly benefit Big Insurance. In other words, insurers would win; your constituents would lose.
Potter concludes:
It’s hard to imagine how insurance companies could write legislation that would benefit them more.
So, whether you agree with a public option or not, if the big prizes could actually go to those who know what they are talking about, saw that what they were doing was harmful to us and then speak out, Wendell Potter actually deserves some sort of gold star.
(Release: November 13)
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http://www.thecypresstimes.com/article/Columnists/A_Time_For_Choosing/BILLIONAIRE_OBAMA_SUPPORTER_KEEPING_LEVI_JOHNSTON_IN_SPOTLIGHT/25081
This needs to be exposed!
Excellent post. Indeed the BAucus bill will only be for us in the middle to be raped further. Cut Medicare, no cost controls on insurance and increases the rates by 30-40 pct so we can foot the bill for lower income and have Barry claim he has health care.
And all the while guaranteed protections on price fixing on pharmaceuticals and no reimports from Canada.
I thought the whole idea was to make health care more affordable to all? Nahhh, just kidding!
Amen to that!!
Zoom: right you are. What is the point of the whole thing without a public option? We’ll be in the same fix; middle class paying for uninsured to go to the emergency room, etc. How can it work to MANDATE health insurance if people can’t afford it and they can’t get public help? Can people who can’t afford health insurance afford to pay a big fine for not having it?
Boy, that Obama, he’s a real genius, no?
And since he’s such a big peacemaker, let’s send him into his own city to negotiate a peace treaty with all the street thugs in his own neighborhood who make a sport of killing honor students waiting to catch the bus.
Obama is willing to sacrifice the public option just to pass ’something’.
Right now Alan Grayson is the one telling it like it is to Democrats in Congress:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbCtp_lsuiA
I wish Reid the Weasel learned something from this guy.
How’s this for a novel plot? Come to Chicago and do some peacemaking yourself. The present is the past faster than you can believe. Criticizing does nothing. Bring the change you want to see.
Good for him. Now, is anyone listening?
So when will Potter get shipped to Gitmo?
OMG! I have one question. Who paid off who. This is an inside job, and it ain’t pretty.
Pat:
So glad you posted this ‘toon…it’s great. I’ve seen and heard Wendell Potter, the “whistleblower”, on several programs over the past 3-4 months. I wonder if that is what is spiking the desire for the public option.
I just don’t see how the legislators cannot put through the public option with cost containment from the big insurance companies and big PHARMA. As rich in various wealths as this country is, it is a crime for so many millions to be trod upon by the Billionnaires in high places. It is very difficult to trust anyone in power or big corporate businesses anymore….so many, many citizens have been taken advantage of through their blind faith in their governmental representatives. There are many, so many, parts of bills proposed and enacted by the legislators that most of us don’t know about that affect each of us. For example, what is on the table for Medicare and Medicade changes with the various health care proposals? I don’t know, do you?
Thanks for pointing him out, Pat.
The use of the word “option” is like a stray bullet and an Innocent bystander.
Medical bankruptcy is the elephant in the room.
No option there, is there?
If the “Public Option” is run or contracted out by the federal Government to Private companies, it is NOT a “public” option at all.
C’mon, guys! President Obama IS a peace maker! He really DID a great deed in the name of peaceful relations between peoples! The Nobel prize committee surely saw the magnificent peace-maker in action when he ACTUALLY brought Harvard Professor “skippy” Gates and Cambridge Police officer Crowley together for a BEER! No less on the White House lawn in fact!
A greater act of peacemaking has never been accomplished in the history of humankind! Nobody is more deserving of the Nobel Peace prize than our very own Uber Messiah!
When everyone world-wide now has a beer, they can propose a toast and hold up their mugs and say,”HEIL OBAMA! The peacemaker”
LOL. Funny comment baba….
O did a great job having others eliminate all of his political competition from Alice Palmer onward (only Bobby Rush prevailed–he wasn’t defeated by the newcomer who bragged to Southside that he was Editor of Harvard Law Review–by appointment, not first in class as traditionally the case).
By having Hillary eliminated in repeated fixes and illegalities, he alienated a lot of the hardworking life-long Democrats. I left the party and am now “Decline to State.” Had the novice won fairly, I would have stayed active in the party, but not voted top of ticket for someone with no qualifications, other than created image, for the job. “He is starting to look Presidential!”
Wow!
I saw zero leadership from him during Axelrod’s rerun of his Patrick Deval’s Hope+Change(TM) campaign. What leadership has he ever shown in his past? What has he ever done for anyone who can’t line his pockets for the next campaign, or help him into a house he can’t afford (the latest new residence is the gift of the corporate-backed media)?
What do you think of your “gift from God” now, Nancy Pelosi?
I agree with Travis’ and Jonathan’s solution to the health care problem. Kill off all of the sick uninsured! Then everyone left has coverage, see?
Hold on.
Yes nurse, I’ve taken my medicine and am not currently hearing the voices. Why I never suggested killing off the sick. Hey what are you doing? Put down that needle! Aaaarrrgghhh!
Thanks Pat for your contribution to the discussion!
I have made a real effort to follow the ups and downs of the proposed legislation, but it only gets more muddled.
Remember the $600 toilet seats for the military? There are so many more examples of obscene waste in anything run by the government…therefore, I oppose the public option.
The savings, yeah right, from Medicare are targeted to go into the Social Security Trust according to one report.
The only way to control health care costs, in my opinion, is to have everyone enrolled in coverage, but the subsidies for that will be staggering as well!
Mutual Insurance companies supposedly realize smaller profit margins, so being able to cross state lines to buy coverage sounds good to me.
The problem is that, as brave as Potter is, spreading some truth around, it seems that he didn’t make a dent in the conscienceless goons that are in our congress.
In order to be actually heard, what he needed to do was give out handsful of $10,000 bills. Apparently, that’s how the people’s business in D.C. is conducted any more.
ummm, it’s extraordinaire. wow.
The fact that Potter takes the stand he does on “health care reform” should scare all of us sh*tless! He knows what they’re up to and it really is as terrible as we suspect it is. Our whole society becomes more Orwellian by the minute. Thanks for the cartoon, Pat.
Wonderful cartoon covering two important subjects.
The first one is Whistle Blowing and how in spite of the fact that it does benefit society when someone does blow the whistle, it still continues to be no badge of honor, but instead the badge of a rat. Why is that? Are we afraid that one day someone will blow the whistle on us and reveal some secret we have? If someone has a good answer I would be happy to hear it. It is the lack of whistle blowing that allows crime to continue and grow. It allows our government officials to get away with things that hurt all of us. It allows businesses to do things that can endanger all of our lives. We need the President to issue special medals each year for the outstanding whistle blowers of the year. We know our press, which used to do some major whistle blowing as part of their investigative mandate, is for the most part doing a minimal job.
As to the public option, I am not in favor for the following reasons. If the public option costs more, or just about the same as private insurance, then who needs it? If it is much less than what the public can buy from private insurance companies because they do not have stock holders who want profits and do not have to pay to raise capital, then why would any employer offer health care insurance from a private company? If everyone therefore buys the government option, there will not be any insurance companies left, so where is choice at that point? Also, since the government does not allow competitive bidding for Medicare, and refuses to change tort laws, then how are they going to keep costs down? Also, since there is no incentive for profits, then who will care if there is fraud and abuse in the system? The government has not shown any evidence that they care much about our money up to now, by giving out cost plus contracts, and resisting if not eliminating competitive bidding. Except for maybe the IRS, who else is really paying attention to losses and fraud?
Prove to me that there is a government program that runs well and is not in the red, and I will listen. Show me one program that the government fixed that had a problem and is now running well and you might convince me to support a government program.
Rich
The fact that the site has a link to "PRE-ORDER SARAH PALINS HOT NEW BOOK:" makes me think they might be biased.
Where we live the advertizer has a right to post their ads anywhere they choose their money is good and probably appreciated. This site is run by the ads, anyway they do ask us to frequent the items as that is how they earn their money, this is not a site that is funded by the amount of time we spend here.
You suggest Web they could be biased my thought is they can pay their bills.
I saw Mr. Potter recently at a Town Hall Meeting where he was endorsing the Health Care Bill. Which one do I believe?