Wendell Potter's Blog, page 17

Don’t Let $418 Million of FUD Fool You

Obamacare-bashing politicians have outspent its supporters 15-1 trying to convince Americans the law’s not providing peace of mind. Last November, I predicted that once millions of Americans were able to join the ranks of the insured, the public’s approval of Obamacare would start to go up. I, of all people, should have known not to [...]

California Coverage Plan for Undocumented Echoes Earlier Call by Schwarzenegger

Poll says residents support allowing ‘illegals’ to buy insurance or enroll in Medicaid. Unlike former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, Democrats in Congress decided as they worked on health care reform that providing coverage to the estimated 11.5 million undocumented residents in the U.S. would not be a good idea. Actually, it would be [...]

Obamacare Helps Millions, but Falls Short in Many Ways

Per capita cost of care still higher than in other nations. Although there is no shortage of critics of the Affordable Care Act — on the far left as well as the right — it’s hard to dispute that the law has benefited millions of Americans. And not just those who have become newly insured [...]

New Types of Health Care Delivery are Improving the ‘Patient Experience’

Insurers may be part of the problem, not the solution. Health care provider organizations that are working directly with employers like Boeing —and cutting out the insurance company middlemen— believe they can do more than save money for those employers. They’re confident they can also improve both health care quality and service for workers and [...]

Health Insurers Turning Into Who Knows What?

Squeeze on profits will continue to transform the industry.  As I wrote last week, one of the nation’s biggest employers — Boeing — is pioneering a concept in providing health care benefits to its employees that eliminates insurance companies as middlemen. What Boeing is doing represents a seismic shift in health care financing and delivery [...]

Taking Insurance Companies Out of Health Care

Boeing experiment will be closely watched by business CEOs and insurers alike. There are many Americans who are beginning to question the contributions big insurance companies make to our health care system. And I’m not just talking about lefty advocates of a single-payer system.  Corporate executives are also wondering why we need the big insurers [...]

Defeat of California Iinitiative Would Protect Insurers’ Profits

Proposition 45 would allow state to reject rate hikes. For the next two months, Californians will to be subjected to a barrage of TV, radio and online ads, which, ironically, they unknowingly will be paying for with their health insurance premiums. The ads are a part of a multi-pronged, multimillion dollar campaign — developed by [...]

Docs, Drug Companies, Insurers Drive Up Medicare Costs

Obamacare forced cuts at hospitals, but not for other segments of industry. As one of an estimated 78 million baby boomers in this country, I was delighted to hear that Medicare’s Hospital Trust Fund won’t run out of money until 2030 — 13 years later than projected in 2009, the year before Congress passed the Affordable [...]

Washington’s Cynical Misinformation Game

Distortion now a standard part of political discourse on health care. In most of our country’s major institutions, we have little tolerance for cheating and lying. Whether it’s the court system, schools, businesses, even our sports teams, we impose stiff sanctions against those who deceive us to gain some advantage. If convicted of lying on [...]

Dire Predictions of Endless Waits for a Doctor Have Proven Unfounded

Critics falsely claimed Obamacare would make matter worse. Among the many predictions of Obamacare-related catastrophe was that the law, by enabling millions to join the ranks of the insured, would force us all to wait longer to see a doctor and very possibly lead to a code blue for U.S. health care. “Doctor shortage, increased [...]