Wendell Potter: Game Changer

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The Center for Media and Democracy's Wendell Potter is featured in this weekend's West Virginia Gazette. He was in Charleston along with Senator Jay Rockefeller, who has been pressing for a public option as part of health insurance reform. According to the article, Senator Rockefeller made the following observation about Wendell: "'When he (Potter) came in front of the Commerce Committee and said what the company CIGNA was doing, it changed the whole game in Washington.'"

Here's a clip of from that article, "Insurance industry is anti-reform, ex-CIGNA exec says; Jay pushing for 'public option.'" At the event, Wendell noted:

The industry led efforts to kill [President] Clinton's health-care plan ... The industry has been at work for years laying the groundwork for devious campaigns. I did not want to be involved in another lobbying and PR campaign to kill health reform ... We must make sure that members of Congress put our interest above the interest of insurance executives who want to make more money ... More and more small businesses can't offer health insurance because of the premiums greedy Wall Street-financed companies are charging.

For more information on Wendell's comments on recent developments in the health insurance debate, click here.