Health Insurance Insider to Testify Before Senate
Media Advisory for June 24, 2009:
HEALTH INSURANCE INSIDER TO TESTIFY BEFORE SENATE
Contact: Page Metcalf, Center for Media and Democracy
Phone: (608) 260-9713
Email: editor AT prwatch.org
Former Executive Warns Congress: Don't Be Fooled by For-Profit Industry's Misleading Campaign
Washington, DC – Wendell Potter, a former health insurance industry insider, will testify before the full Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday June 24, 2009 at 2:30 p.m. EST, exposing the health insurance industry's resistance to needed health care reform.
Mr. Potter spent more than 20 years as a public relations executive for two large health insurers - Cigna and Humana - but left the industry after witnessing practices he felt harmed American health care consumers. To him, there was a heart-breaking discrepancy between Americans struggling to find affordable, comprehensive coverage and wealthy insurance executives who based their premium charges – and coverage decisions – on profits rather than people's health care needs. He has decided to come forward in the hopes of stopping the health insurance industry from once again derailing meaningful reform.
He will testify about how big, for-profit insurers have hijacked our health care system and turned it into a giant ATM for Wall Street investors and how the industry is using its massive wealth and influence to determine what is (and is not) included in the legislation currently before Congress.
WHO: Wendell Potter, Former Health Insurance Executive (Cigna and Humana Inc.) and Senior Fellow on Health Care with the Center for Media and Democracy, exposing the industry and telling Congress, "Don't buy the hype."
WHAT: Hearing on "Consumer Choices and Transparency in the Health Insurance Industry,"
Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation
WHEN: Wednesday June 24, 2009 Hearing Start Time: 2:30 pm Press Pre-Set Time: 1:45 pm
WHERE: Room 253, Russell Senate Office Building
Comments
Three Things
Ok....ok, Give me 3 examples of public businesses the government has run effectively? Do not include Medicare, Social Security, or Medicaid - these are all a no go that's a given. I want all of us to win in the healthcare scramble, but lets face it I cringe at the thought of more big government.
Respectfully yours,
Steve P. Tampa
Why do you say that none of
Why do you say that none of those are working? They may not function well forever, but even great countries do not function well forever. They have served their purpose. A country can't be run without a government...big or small.
Delco Remy
reply to Steve P-Tampa Re:Gov (healthcare) Option
I also do not like my chances of identifying 3 government enterprises that work well and that is a valid consideration. When I consider the alternative, however, I am forced to look at inurers and providers. We may disagree honestly as to whether the nightmare of dealing with a government bureaucrat could possibly be any darker than the nightmare of dealing with an insurance bureaucrat, but I am betting my life, literally, that we can both add. I find it difficult, if not impossible, to believe that administering a single healthcare plan could possibly -possibly- cost more than is currently being spent to administer the hundreds of different plans offered by the dozens of carriers, irrespective of who the adminisrator of that single plan may be. I find it difficult, if not impossible, to believe that when you replace all the profiteering ploys (approvals, coverage, billing, verbage, etc, ad nauseum which characterize the current system) with a single plan, that is, a single source of reference common to all, that there is any way that it could possibly -possibly- cost more than the hide-and-go-seek, deny-and-defend apparatus currently in place for the purpose of profiteering as much as administrating and administrating peculiarities which, by definition, would not exist were there only one single plan. There certainly must be some value to getting literally everyone on literally THE same page. Agreed: not thousands of pages of political favors. Estimates and representations vary as to how much could be saved, but certainly it must be agreeable to believe that there is potential for signicant savings in this area alone.
How to get providers to abandon their business model in exchange for a sustainable model of responsible health care is aother part of the equation that we will never get to if we continue to split the hair of how much worse any one administrator for one plan could be than any insurance company is today.
Questions
Why didn't Mr. Potter have a problem with the insurance companies while he was working for them for 20+ years?
Why aren't you posting the salaries and profit levels of hospitals, doctors, and pharmacy companies who are also a part of the system?
I'm not saying the current health care system doesn't need changing, but insurance companies are not the sole problem.
For that matter, the CEO salaries posted aren't different from professional athletes and actors. Why is it okay for them to collect rediculous salaries but not CEOs of corporations?
...CEO salaries posted
Professional athletics and movies are for entertainment. People choose to whether or not to spend disposable income to watch football and rent movies. But health care is a basic human necessity and should be regarded as a universal right; it doesn't belong in the for-profit sector.
People who supply health care should all be paid decently, but rock star pay for fat cats at the top of a too-tall hierarchy? Uh-uh, sorry.
HealthCare and Public option
I have spent the last 25 years of my career in the health care industry and believe many that oppose or demonizing the insurance sector are ignorant to some facts, not stupid just misinformed. There is a lot of misinformation out there and lack the knowledge needed to make informed decisions. We hear more politics in the press than solid healthcare delivery insight. Some thoughts -
1. “Capitalism” drives this country’s engine, it is the lifeblood. It is what has made us the greatest country on the planet. If companies like Humana, United Health or CIGNA were ineffective at managing their business they would run it into the ground. These firms work on a thin margins 2-3% and still manage to make a profit. The CEO’s mentioned all should be applauded and deserve the income they earn.
2. “Customer service and guidance” Imagine if there were not a central entity for consumers to call gain guidance, when they need help with claims, or billing, then you will be left with talking to a government employee to solve your issue. Have you ever called your State department, Social security, Medicare? Normally, you get a person that means well, but is not highly qualified and hang up more frustrated.
3. COST - Most of the problems in my opinion are with the AMA, the physician groups, and Pharm and ancillary providers. They want to balance bill you and get more money. We are rated 31 worldwide ranking for delivering health care. Do you think a doctor is going to deliver less quality care because they have to accept a reasonable income? If this were the case, they should change their profession. I have personally encountered many physicians will not accept insurance cards and want only cash, then you file the claim. They do this because they want to balance bill you, something the insurance company protects you against. They want free reign. Many providers run a fair practice, while delivering quality care at a reasonable rate. There is a balance between cost, quality and coverage.
4. Seniors - Healthcare companies that have a Medicare contract with the government are already highly regulated by CMS (Center of Medicare Services). Examples of these are Humana, CIGNA, Blue Cross, etc. Why regulate them more? In essences a quasi-government entity that is being paid or sub-contracted to manage the huge public business – Medicare.
5. Get the employer out of the middle and relive them of the burden.
In closing, public health care already exist, it’s Medicaid, Medicare, SHIP, Chips, etc. If we must have more public options, I say let the companies that are good at what they do, like Humana, CIGNA and UNH be the adjudicators, administrators, and marketing of the program. Provide a program that is affordable for those pre-65, maybe based on prior year income and make premiums deductible from taxes. Create a catastrophic plan with rate caps to cover those that want to share in the risk and trade off for low rates. Let the insurance carriers manage this program, this is what they do; this is their business, and good at it. Don’t let the government try and be something they are not. I would rather they focus on Iran, and North Korea, something they are really good at doing. There is a place for a public option, but not run by the government.
Steve P. (Tampa, Florida)
Could I make a suggestion?
Quit draping this current terrible system in the Flag, and stop expecting people to kowtow to "greatness." Ancient Egypt was the greatest in its time, but how livable was it for its ordinary people? March of the Gladiators fits our system of sociopathic medicine better than Battle Hymn of the Republic does.
Healthcare and Public Option
I have to comment on what I see as a glaring conflict in this post:
"The CEO’s mentioned all should be applauded and deserve the income they earn."
"Do you think a doctor is going to deliver less quality care because they have to accept a reasonable income? If this were the case, they should change their profession."
There is enough blame in our medical care situation to go around, everyone and I do mean everyone, insurance companies, the AMA, our representatives in government, and the public are going to have to accept change, real change to move forward.
Here are the LATEST Health Insurance CEO Salaries (2008)
THE LATEST FIGURES:
The health insurance companies continue to play a major role in our current healthcare crisis. They make huge profits and their CEOs make millions, while the rest of us are are subject to life-threatening insurance denials. The CEOs continue to make outrageous salaries, money that could provide healthcare for Americans.
The Total Package: Health plan CEO compensation for 2008
May 14, 2009
Despite the trials and tribulations of the past year, the health insurance executives are still raking in MILLIONS of dollars at the end of the day. This is a look at some of the top total compensation packages from 2008 based on information gathered from the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission.
1. Ron Williams, Aetna - $24.3 million
2. H. Edward Hanway, CIGNA - $12.2 million
3. Angela Braly, WellPoint - $9.8 million
4. Dale Wolf, Coventry Health Care - $9 million
5. Michael Neidorff, Centene - $8.8 million
6. James Carlson, AMERIGROUP - $5.3 million
7. Michael McCallister, Humana - $4.8 million
8. Jay Gellert, Health Net - $4.4 million
9. Richard Barasch, Universal American - $3.5 million
10. Stephen Hemsley, UnitedHealth Group - $3.2 million
– adapted from a Special Report by Dan Bowman
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/special-reports/total-package-health-plan-ceo-compensations-2008
Only a single-payer approach to healthcare reform will END THE INHUMANITY OF OUR FAILED HEALTHCARE INSURANCE SYSTEM, WHERE PROFITS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN PATIENTS’ HEALTH, and where people die because of it.
We need to get the insurance companies OUT of healthcare. Our fight for equal access to healthcare for all is about democracy, human rights, civil rights, and basic human decency.
Business model
Insurance company is running a business, not a welfare department. If you are a share holder, why don't you complain at the share holder meeting. Do you think Government run health care is more efficient? Look at our federal deficits and some States deficits, will those numbers keep you up at night? Or you just want free health care. Insurance company is not the problem, the problem is we lost millions and millions well paying jobs to other nation and imported millions of labors to our country.