Wendell Potter's Blog, page 25

Insurance Tricks to Avoid ObamaCare’s Consumer Protections

Firms pushing for early renewals to get around requirements of the Affordable Care Act. Bookmark this column and read it whenever an insurance company’s feel-good TV commercial tries to convince you its bosses care as much about your health as they do about next quarter’s profit margins. I can assure you they don’t. Here’s the [...]

Echoes of the Past in Anti-ObamaCare Ads

Americans for Prosperity’s misleading new spots bring back memories of Harry & Louise. CINCINNATI, Ohio—Watching Americans for Prosperity’s new anti-ObamaCare advertisement here in Ohio—one of the first states it’s being aired—took me back 20 years. Almost exactly 20 years, in fact. I was a PR guy for the insurance industry in 1993, and I had [...]

“Is This Thing On?”

The media’s coverage of the implementation of the health care reform law has been so much like the way most reporters cover political campaigns – superficially – that it’s little wonder Americans are largely uninformed and confused about how the law will affect them. And when you take into consideration the fact that the Obama [...]

A Healthy Attitude Toward Expanding Medicaid

Six years ago this month, while serving as head of communications for one of the world’s largest health insurers, I went to a Remote Area Medical “health care expedition” at the Wise County, Va., Fairgrounds, a few miles from where I grew up in the Southern Appalachians. Thousands of uninsured people had driven hundreds of [...]

Delay in Employer Mandate Shouldn’t Obscure Obamacare’s Benefits

Most of the important provisions for consumers will go into effect as planned in January. The Obama administration’s decision to postpone for a year the requirement that large employers offer health insurance to their workers has been characterized by pundits on the left as a capitulation to big business and on the right as the [...]

Putting Big Health Insurers in Their Place

Big firms are mostly just administrators now, and the new exchanges are better off without them. Aetna made the wrong kind of headlines in California a few days back.  The health insurance giant said it plans to stop selling individual coverage in the state and would not renew the individual policies it currently has in [...]

Pro-Industry Amendments Lard Up Missouri Insurance Legislation

Gov. Nixon faces dilemma. Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon is facing a dilemma. Should he sign a bill that was intended to help many state residents get coverage for cost-effective health care that insurers often refuse to pay for? Or veto the bill because it is loaded with amendments that will benefit insurers and force many Missourians [...]

An Outbreak of Bipartisanship

Expansion of Medicaid in Arizona, Michigan shows how Democrats, Republicans can work together. olks, there is reason to be hopeful that our lawmakers can put aside their ideological differences every now and then and do what makes sense for constituents. In fact, last week some of the people we have elected to represent us — [...]

Smoothing out Medicaid’s ‘Churn.’

Proposed legislation would prevent eligibility glitches that yank folks in and out of the program. Bipartisanship is so rare on Capitol Hill these days, especially in regard to health care, that when such comity breaks out, it’s worth reporting. Around the time the House of Representatives was voting for the 30-somethingth time to repeal Obamacare, [...]

The Peril of Obamacare’s Promise

Some health plans will indeed disappear, but consumers might be better off. Presidents often live to regret some of the words speechwriters put in their mouths.  The first President Bush paid a steep price for his ill-advised “Read my lips. No new taxes!” promise in 1988. He lost his bid for a second term. No [...]