Wendell Potter's News Articles

Op-Ed

To Save Billions, the Government Should Pay Doctors to Make House Calls

by Wendell Potter — August 8, 2011 - 11:46am
  • Topics: Economy, Health, U.S. Government

    • Dr. Bruce Kinosian still makes house calls, and he's proud of it. In fact, he introduces himself as a physician who goes to see his patients in their homes rather than insisting that they come to see him at his office.

    He's convinced that if more doctors did what he does, we could eliminate billions of dollars we currently spend in this country in an often-futile -- and almost always incredibly expensive -- effort to get people well.

    Much of that savings, he says, would accrue to the Medicare program, making it unnecessary for Congress to even consider eliminating benefits or raising the eligibility age.

    Kinosian, associate professor of medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, is a leading advocate of the Independence at Home (IAH) program, which quietly has been saving the Department of Veteran's Affairs (and taxpayers) lots of money -- and improving the quality of life for thousands of veterans -- for nearly three decades.

    Op-Ed

    Do We Really Need Insurers in Primary Care?

    by Wendell Potter — August 4, 2011 - 11:38am
  • Topics: Corporations, Economy, Health

    • For health insurance executives, there is no scarier word than disintermediation. It's a fancy word that means eliminating the middleman, and those executives know that to many folks, they are the middlemen who all too often stand between patients and their doctors.

    Now a small but growing number of doctors are figuring out that they and their patients can do quite well without the middleman. If this nascent trend catches on, insurance executives might soon discover that they have been disintermediated, at least as far as the delivery of primary care is concerned.

    Op-Ed

    Health Insurers Sacrifice Americans for Profit

    by Wendell Potter — August 1, 2011 - 8:20am
  • Topics: Corporations, Ethics, Health

    • Three of the biggest health insurers have announced quarterly earnings in the past few days. If Americans were able to eavesdrop on what executives from those firms tell their Wall Street masters every three months, they would have a better understanding of why premiums keep going up while the number of people with medical coverage keeps going down.

    It only takes three words, when you get right down to it, to describe the real of those folks: profits over people.

    CIGNA and Humana are scheduled to report earnings this week. The three companies that have already spoken -- UnitedHealth, WellPoint and Aetna -- earned a combined $2.51 billion from April through the end of June, more than analysts expected. On a per share basis, their earnings were up more than 17 percent on average compared with the second quarter of 2010.

    Op-Ed

    A Smart Investment in Our Kid's Health

    by Wendell Potter — July 29, 2011 - 12:47pm
  • Topics: Children, Corporations, Health

    • If opponents of health care reform could view the grant money in the Affordable Care Act as an investment in our children rather than wasteful spending, I believe at least some of them would eventually accept that we're better off with the law than without it.

    I'd be especially confident if they took the time to visit some of the community facilities that will be able to meet the health care needs of thousands more Americans as a result of those grants.

    Earlier this month, the Obama administration announced awards of $95 million to 278 school-based health center programs across the country. The grants -- the first of $200 million worth of awards between now and 2013 -- will help clinics expand and provide more medical services at schools nationwide.

    Op-Ed

    Insurance Exchanges Tilted Toward Health Insurers, Not Consumers

    by Wendell Potter — July 14, 2011 - 1:41pm
  • Topics: Corporations, Ethics, Health

    • The insurance industry made it abundantly clear this week that it is in the driver's seat -- in both Washington and state capitols -- of one of the most important vehicles created by Congress to reform the U.S. health care system.

    The Affordable Care Act requires the states to create new marketplaces -- "exchanges" -- where individuals and small businesses can shop for health insurance. In the 15 months since the law took effect, insurers have lobbied the Obama administration relentlessly to give states the broadest possible latitude in setting up their exchanges. And those insurance companies have been equally relentless at the state level in making sure governors and legislators follow their orders in determining how the exchanges will be operated.

    News

    ALEC Exposed: Sabotaging Healthcare

    by Wendell Potter — July 14, 2011 - 7:10am
  • Topics: ALEC Exposed, Health

    • Days after President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, I arrived at the spring 2010 meeting of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) in Denver, where a fellow consumer representative introduced me to one of the hundreds of industry lobbyists swarming the convention center.

    Op-Ed

    U.S. Health Insurance System Stifles Innovation, Hurts Small Business

    by Wendell Potter — July 11, 2011 - 8:41am
  • Topics: Corporations, Economy, Health

    • Want to be an entrepreneur but also be certain you'll have health insurance?

    Good luck with that. You might seriously consider moving to Denmark or Canada. Those countries have not only achieved universal health care coverage for their citizens -- coverage that's not tied to employment -- but they have also moved ahead of the U.S. in the Small Business Administration's ranking of entrepreneurial performance worldwide.

    Contrast that with our situation stateside. Many of America's best and brightest are locked in soul-killing corporate jobs because of this country's employer-based health care system. A lot of them undoubtedly would love to make a break from their corporate jails and start their own businesses. But they won't -- especially if there's a family to support -- because they fear losing health care benefits and not being able to find decent coverage on their own.

    Op-Ed

    For-Profit Health Insurance: Where the Real Death Panels Lie

    by Wendell Potter — July 7, 2011 - 11:54am
  • Topics: Corporations, Ethics, Health

    • On behalf of Grigor and Hilda Sarkisyan, I would like to invite Republican Rep. Phil Gingrey of Georgia to attend the 21st birthday celebration of the Sarkisyans' only daughter, Nataline, this coming Saturday, July 9, in Calabasas, California.

    Gingrey could consider it a legitimate, reimbursable fact-finding mission. He clearly needs to have more facts about the U.S. health care system before he starts talking about death panels again.

    Gingrey seems determined to keep alive the lie that the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a., Obamacare) will create government-run death panels in the Medicare program.

    Sarah Palin started the death panel fabrication when she claimed during the health care reform debate that a proposal to allow Medicare to reimburse doctors for talking to their patients about advance directives would be tantamount to establishing death panels deep in the federal bureaucracy. So many people believed her lie that Democrats felt they had no choice but to strip that provision from the final bill.

    Op-Ed

    Time for Outrage

    by Wendell Potter — July 5, 2011 - 11:15am
  • Topics: Corporations, Ethics, Health

    • One of my favorite bumper stickers reads, "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention."

    That's sort of how I feel about the health care debate. If more Americans paid attention to the fate of neighbors and loved ones who have fallen victim to the cruel dysfunction of our health care system, they would see through the onslaught of lies and propaganda perpetrated by special interests profiting from the status quo.

    Since I started speaking out against the abuses of the insurance industry, I have heard from hundreds of people with maddening and heartbreaking stories about being mistreated and victimized by the greed that characterizes so much of the profit-driven American health care system.

    News

    Insurers' Bait and Switch

    by Wendell Potter — June 30, 2011 - 10:35am
  • Topics: Corporations, Ethics, Health

    • More and more Americans are falling victim to one of the most insidious bait-and-switch schemes in U.S. history. As they do, health insurance executives and company shareholders are getting richer and richer. This industry-wide plot explains how health insurers have been able to reap record profits during the recent recession as the ranks of the uninsured and underinsured continue to swell.

    It also explains why the insurance industry and its allies are pulling out all the stops to kill a measure in the California legislature that could protect state residents from losing their homes and being forced into bankruptcy if they get seriously sick or injured.

    On June 2, the California Assembly passed AB 52, a bill that would give state regulators the authority to reject excessive health insurance rate increases. Similar legislation has been introduced in other state legislatures, but nowhere are the stakes higher than in California -- not only because AB 52 would allow the insurance commissioner to turn down requests for unjustifiably high rate hikes, but also because it would enable the commissioner to reject increases in deductibles as well.

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