Bill Moyers Journal Features CMD's Wendell Potter

Dear Mr. Potter,

First, I would like to congratulate you on speaking out against the corruption of the health insurance companies. I am a strong supporter of the health care bill, and I recently watched your interview on Bill Moyers’ Journal about these corporations. After viewing the show, I saw your courage and honesty as a sign of hope in the effort for health care reform. I admire your integrity, because I would have found it difficult to speak out if I were in your position. Your inside knowledge of the issue was refreshing, and I felt that your breakdown of the system was eye opening and instrumental in helping me understand the background and motives of the insurance companies.

I couldn’t agree more with your analysis, but I found it shocking the measures the health care industry would take to gain more profit, even if it meant rejecting or letting go of policy holders. In addition, I found your rebuttal to those opposed to the reform bill to be well argued and supported by strong evidence. Although I espouse the capitalist system, it is imperative that people understand that health insurance cannot be dealt in such a manner. It seems that many who see the reform as dangerous to America’s free market economy fail to realize that the health care industry is unique in that it deals with the lives of people, not products. However, the companies treat their policyholders as such - not as human beings, but as numbers in a statistic. Your insight into the hypocrisy and scare tactics of the insurance companies was illuminating, but I still fail to grasp that many Americans, in ignorance, fall for these traps and criticize the “socialism” of a government-run health care policy.

Though I felt that the interview was eye opening, I believe that many Americans are unaware of the problems you addressed. I find myself berated each day for my support of the bill, and am shocked that the arguments I often face have been outlined and rebuked in your interview. I encourage you to continue in your efforts to spread your knowledge, and hope that you are successful in your effort.

Best regards,
Matthew Chan
Stuart Hall High School '11

Ask "who profits most from current health care proposals and from a public option?"

The answer is clearly big corporations and not the public. Why is a venal, employee-abusive company like Wal-Mart is so actively supporting the measure? It is only to serve themselves.

Wendell Potter "speaks out" about an industry that makes about 3% profit on the health care part of insurance. Potter was just a communications executive and, like most of them, really doesn't know what he is talking about.

Potter says that insurers' expense management and purging actions resulted in collective medical-loss ratios of the seven largest for-profit insurers falling from an average of 85.3 percent in 1998 to 81.6 percent in 2008 and "that translates into a difference of several billion dollars in favor of insurance company shareholders and executives."

Potter cites that Pricewaterhouse result and assumes the cause - but a far more likely cause is the fact that "44% of workers with health benefits were covered by self-insured plans in 1999. That percentage had risen to 55% in 2007." In other words, insurance companies no longer had that risk and expense, thus improving their medical-loss ratios. Businesses funded their own plans.

86% of companies larger than 5,000 employees have become self-insured as have 76% of those with 1,000-4,999 employees. Companies like mine jumped on the bandwagon to reduce healthcare costs because 1) states all had different regulations to follow, and self-funded companies could simply abide by ERISA and 2) businesses saved all the state taxes of 2-6% that insurance companies have to pay on premiums.

What do big corporations get? With a public option, private options will fade away. Users will opt for the public option to save a few bucks on their share of premiums, not realizing what they are giving up in the long run. The costs paid by the big corporations will drop dramatically and their risk and liability as self-insurers disappears.

What does the consumer get with a public option? Look at Medicare - it means unilateral (and often unreasonably) reduced payments to providers. Users have to buy Medigap insurance to cover at least part of the difference between what this public option pays and the care they need. The rest comes out of their pocket or they go without.

Users receive less of the care their doctor says is necessary. As examples, when I was ill, I was sometimes mistaken for a Medicare patient. When my doctor said I needed my two deep wounds monitored, cleansed and treated daily by a home nurse for a couple of months, I was told Medicare would cover a few visits and then, "You have to find someone else to do it for you." I was also told Medicare covered only 20 colostomy bags a month and I would have to wash them out and reuse them. Fortunately, our actual insurance covered what I needed.

Yes, health care definitely needs reform in terms of efficiencies and, most likely, in prohibiting things like hip replacements for octogenarians on the brink of death from cancer. Yes, there should be reasonable options for those with pre-existing conditions and some sort of portability...but none of those fixes requires a "public option."

But no one is discussing that kind of improvement first. Instead, the public will lose out once again while the big-buck corporations profit thanks to their generous funding of both Democrats and Republicans. Beginning t age 65, mandatory end-of-life discussions are incorporated for patients (HR 3200 section 1233) Committees decide on "the most effective treatments" and all medical records must be filed with the government by 2014.

In business, if you unilaterally drop prices before you eliminate waste and fix the processes, then you lose money and go bankrupt, especially if you keep spending money you don't have. You have to fix the costs first. The Feds fail to do that....which is why they have programs that are never fixed and keep going bankrupt...

My brother was fired from IBM after 18 years of employment (age discrimination). Not only did he lose a career but also his health insurance. He simply could not afford to seek medical service when he experienced unexplained rapid weight loss.

Finally, he sought help at a local free health clinic, but by then the renal cell carcinoma had metastasized throughout his body. He died only a few months later after diagnosis.

no insurance + no health care = late diagnosis and early death

I'm ready for something drastic to be done. Was on the phone with my health insurance provider today for two medical incidents. The first was a bill that they didn't pay because "The doctor is in network but the facility he used wasn't" .. ??? And the other was an emergency room visit to a hospital that was in network but the doctor who saw us was out of network. This is a PPO plan that we pay about $950 a month for. Makes me sick.