CMD's Wendell Potter Interviewed by Amy Goodman

by John Stauber — July 16, 2009 - 10:58am
  • Topics: Health, Lobbying
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    Wendell Potter is the former CIGNA health insurance executive who is now Senior Fellow on Health Care with the Center for Media and Democracy. He is blowing the whistle on his former industry's lobby and PR tactics and was interviewed July 16, 2009 for forty-five minutes by Amy Goodman of the radio and TV program Democracy Now! The entire interview can be viewed online. Here is a snippet:

    AMY GOODMAN: What is the game plan of the health insurance industry?

    WENDELL POTTER: Well, the game plan is based on scare tactics. And, of course, the thing they fear most is that the country will at some point gravitate toward a single-payer plan. That's the ultimate fear that they have. But they know that right now that is not something that's on the legislative table. And they've been very successful in making sure that it isn't. They fear even the public insurance option that's being proposed, that was part of President Obama's campaign platform, his healthcare platform. And they'll pull out all the stops they can to defeat that. And they'll be working with their ideological allies, with the business community, with conservative pundits and editorial writers, to try to scare people into thinking that embracing a public health insurance option would lead us down the slippery slope toward socialism and that you will be, in essence, putting a government bureaucrat between you and your doctor. That is—you know, they've used those talking points for years, and in years past they've always worked.

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    Health Care

    Submitted by Bonitalulu (not verified) on August 17, 2009 - 12:56am.

    l wonder why nobody speaks about the claims against Kaiser, Blue Cross and other Health Insurance Co? I thought I have one of the best Health Insurance with Kaiser. When I start feeling really sick I discover doctors don't like to send you to a specialist. It takes 2 months to get an appointment with a Gynecologist. When one Friday I took my husband to Emergency because of severe chest pain we have to wait 45 minutes for a room and another 30 minutes to see a doctor. He was left overnight for observation. They release him the following Saturday afternoon. At 3 Am on Sunday he died!!! Couldn't have kept my husband for 2 or 3 days for observation? Give him the right test? I think that the HMO needs competition. The Senators in Congress are not treated this way. I know of other people with similar experiences. I have Medicare now and thanks to that program I have peace of mind. And this is a Government program. I still keep Kaiser. The problem with Medicare is that they are overcharged by some hospitals and again nobody from Medicare pay attention when people tell them about these abuses. That has to change if we want to control the expenses. I know about this because what happened to my mother in law!
    I hope people don't believe all the lies in the Media.

    CIHI Data

    Submitted by Greg L (not verified) on August 5, 2009 - 11:25pm.

    Here is actual text from a report on Wait Times by the Canadian Institute for Health Information. You can download it yourself from their website.

    Ask what makes Canada different from the United States, and health care is sure to come up. Interestingly, though, Canadians and insured Americans are about equally likely to report unmet needs for health care in the past year.1 One in ten adults on both sides of the border did so in 2002–2003. (Rates are much higher for uninsured Americans.) But the leading reasons for access problems do diverge. In the United States, cost was the most common barrier, cited by just over half of those with unmet needs. In Canada, waiting for care was named as a barrier by 32% of those with access difficulties.

    This overall result, however, masks the variations in barriers to access for
    different types of services. Waits are the most common barrier named by seekers of specialist care who encounter difficulties. The same is true for those seeking non-emergency diagnostic testing and surgery. For routine and ongoing medical care, more mentioned difficulties getting an appointment than cited wait time. Likewise, the cost of getting help was the top barrier reported by Canadians with disabilities who had unmet needs for help with everyday activities. On the other hand, Canadian women who have not had a recent pap smear or mammogram are most likely to say that it was because they or their doctor didn't think one was
    necessary or because they haven' gotten around to it.

    So the CIHI reports shows that American are waiting for health care because of the cost, while Canadians are waiting mainly for non-emergency, or non-essential procedures.

    Wendell Potter and Bill Moyer

    Submitted by LarryC (not verified) on July 20, 2009 - 12:36pm.

    I saw some of Moyer's interview with Wendell Potter and it made me wonder how good Potter was as a spokesperson for Cigna. Moyer's showed some clips from Michael Moore's SICKO that implied that the Canadian health system and the Cuban health care system were better than the U.S. system. Potter accepted that view. Has Potter ever heard of the book Code Blue by Dr. David Gratzer about the problems in the Canadian system or read the transcript of Dr. Gratzer's testimony before the U.S. House of Representatiov Ways and Means Committee. Long waits for treatment are the norm. By Canadian statistics 50% of patients wait 41 days or more for a MRI. 25% of patients wait 199 days for cataract surgery. The Canadian Supreme Court recently ruled that patients have a right to use their own money to secure their own health care because the wait could be harmful to the patients' care. The Supreme Court became involved because it became illegal in the 1980s for a person to have private health insurance. Notice that last sentence. Having one's health insurance was legal and then it became illegal. No doubt the arguments used was that it would improve cost-savings.

    I fully support a change in the way our health care system is set-up. However, thought should be given to whatever change is made. Anyone pushing a 1000 page bill to be processed quickly should be viewed with suspicion. No one really knows what is about to become law.

    statistics

    Submitted by Nancy W (not verified) on August 17, 2009 - 4:25pm.

    I would like to know the statistics for the following question: What % of people in Canada were forced to declare bankruptcy due to an unforseen health emergency? My guess is that it is near zero. How many of the Canadians lose their homes and life savings due to health care issues?

    If you look carefully at the two statistics given, you'll see that 50% of patients waited less than 6 weeks for an MRI. I'll bet some of them got their MRI's right away when a medical professional deemed it necessary. And 75% waited less than 6 months or so for free cataract surgery. Having cataracts is not pleasant, but it is also not life threatening. I would be glad to wait a few months in exchange for no deductibles and co-insurance bills.

    Having talked to many

    Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on July 22, 2009 - 4:46am.

    Having talked to many friends in Canada, I’m not sure I buy those statistics. But, even if they are true, how long would tens of millions of American have to wait for cataract surgery right now? Forever, that’s how long, because they couldn’t afford it.

    This whole notion that we should deny or severely restrict the availability of health care to the poor and half the middle class in this country so that we, the chosen ones, don’t have to wait a little longer to get ours amazes me.

    It's a disgusting argument.

    Why is there no public

    Submitted by Patty (not verified) on August 12, 2009 - 11:35pm.

    Why is there no public discussion of the immorality of anything other than
    equitable universal care?

    Health Care

    Submitted by Larry C (not verified) on July 22, 2009 - 7:27pm.

    Judging by some of the angry responses to my quoting statistics provided by the Canadian government funded Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), it appears that some people have lost sight of the health care goal the U.S. is seeking and resort to anger as proof of their sincerity and compassion for those being hurt by our current health care system.
    The Canadian government funded this agency to provide data on wait times impacting a patient’s health. The person who used Anonymous as the submitted name claims the statistics are false, and it does not make any difference anyway because at least everyone is covered. If the stats are false, then a Canadian funded agency is lying. Is that what the submitter means to say? As far as wait times being acceptable because everyone is covered, I suggest the person go to the CIHI website and understand the implications of the most recent wait-time report issued on April 23 of this year. Hip replacement within 26 weeks is within the acceptable benchmarks of the Canadian health care system. For the person waiting for the hip replacement, that can be 26 weeks of pain. The report covers knee replacements, by-pass surgery, and other procedures that mean the patient will have to endure the pain until an opening for doing the procedure is available. Apparently, this wait is acceptable to some (those not in pain) and no further improvement in the health care system is needed.
    Dr. David Gratzer is not arguing against some type of government involvement to achieve health care for all. He is arguing that there is a better way that does not involve patient’s waiting in pain. Read what he has written.

    Strong emotions should not take the place of thought.

    Dr. David Gratzer is also a

    Submitted by Darek (not verified) on July 23, 2009 - 11:38pm.

    Dr. David Gratzer is also a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

    http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Manhattan_Institute_for_Policy_Research

    Please do not pretend, LarryC, that there is no conflict of interest in Gratzer's work pertaining to his presentation before Congress.

    Health Care

    Submitted by Larry C (not verified) on July 28, 2009 - 4:03pm.

    I do not see how Dr. Gratzer writing for The Manhatten Institute represents a conflict of interest. Are you claiming that the The Manhatten Institute has as one of its goals the stopping of the health care bill now under discussion? Do you also reject any statements or writings from The Brookings Institute or The Cato Institute because they also would represent a conflict of interest?

    Dr. Gratzer is quoting data developed by the Canadian Institute for Health Information, a group tasked by the Canadian government with providing information on the effectiveness of the Canadian health care system. Do you propose that data that does not support your position is tainted and therefore should be ignored?

    Larry C, I'm not trying to

    Submitted by Darek (not verified) on July 29, 2009 - 6:49pm.

    Larry C,

    I'm not trying to poison the well and say anything from this or that person or place is worthless because of associations - but it certainly has to be taken into consideration. Or are you that naive?

    Certainly, I have my bias' - as we all do, but I am not going to sit here and pretend that think tanks like the Manhattan Institute or Cato Institute have my best interests at stake. Or do you need to be schooled in what it is think tanks do?

    As for the said statistics - I'm sure those statistics make a case for Graetzer's point - statistics have a funny way of doing that while being neutral to political or social matters. Statistics also have a funny thing about them - mainly that they can't tell the entire story by their numbers alone - like the fact that the primary reason for wait times in Canada is that the system itself as a whole is under-funded - one of the biggest problems of any government run program (not that its a problem that can't be solved).

    So you can pretend that as long as someone has cited certain statistics in their arguments that that makes whoever helps put money in their pockets as something irrelevant, but I choose to consider the notion when evaluating someone's argument. It's nothing emotional - its rather rational - especially considering the function of think tanks themselves.