Wendell Potter's Blog, page 28

Want to Fix Health Care? Watch This Movie.

Tonight: Escape Fire, The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare. I’m often asked what I think of Obamacare. I tell people it’s as good as far as it goes. It will provide coverage for millions of uninsured Americans, and it will make many of the most egregious practices of the health insurance industry a thing of [...]

Congress, Lies and Statistics

Sen. Sessions manipulates GAO report about Obamacare for partisan points. One of the reasons Americans are still confused about the Affordable Care Act is the ongoing misrepresentation of the law by members of Congress who voted against it.  This obfuscation isn’t confined to what the law actually does or doesn’t do, but also to what [...]

Health Insurance ‘Producers’ About to be on Life Support

A recent story out of Oklahoma shows just how vital investigative journalists are—and how health insurance agents and brokers may be anything but vital in just a matter of months. For decades, many individuals and small business owners have sought out the help of agents and brokers—known as “producers” in the insurance world—to help them [...]

Drug Firms Say No to Rebates, Despite Billions in New Revenue From Part D

Profits are huge, but pharmaceutical lobby says the sky is falling. If you watched President Obama’s State of the Union address last week, you might have missed the scheme he unveiled that will lead to the ruination of the Medicare prescription drug program, destroy pharmaceutical companies’ incentive to develop new life-saving medicines and even imperil [...]

Big Pharma’s Stranglehold on Washington

Drug companies have armies of lobbyists, and the rest of us are paying the price. It’s no surprise that American corporations spend billions of dollars each year on lobbying, trying to gain favorable treatment from legislators. What some may find a bit unnerving is the industry that’s leading the pack in these efforts. You might [...]

Favors For Special Interests

Insurers and drug companies and their armies of lobbyists get what they pay for on Capitol Hill. If you wonder why we spend more money on health care than any other country  but have some of the worst health outcomes, you need look no further than the halls of Congress to figure out why that [...]

Distorted Spin from Health Insurers and Their Friendly Front Groups

SHOUT America claims to represent young folks worried about costs, but don’t be fooled. In my book,  Deadly Spin, I described the PR playbook health insurers, tobacco companies and other special interests use to influence public policy, often by deceptive means. One tried-and-true tactic is to recruit third parties to help deliver your talking points [...]

Consumer Protections in Industry Crosshairs

Insurance industry campaign targets Obamacare provisions that outlaw ‘junk insurance,’ prevent price gouging based on age. If you’re a 20- or 30-something and have health coverage, you’re being targeted by an insurance industry campaign to eliminate two important consumer protections in the Affordable Care Act. If you’re a twenty- or thirty-something and have health coverage, [...]

Differing Notions of ‘Affordability’

Insurers want more premiums but they don’t really want to expand coverage. For the first time in a long time, my former insurance colleagues and I agree on something: it’s time for affordability. Health insurers’ big PR and lobbying group, America’s Health Insurance Plans, has launched a slick new campaign, complete with compelling graphics and [...]

What Insurers Aren’t Telling You

Studies tell a selective story of Obamacare’s implications for young people. As Ronald Reagan once famously said, “There you go again.” The culprits in this case are health insurance companies that want to change ObamaCare so they can keep selling highly profitable junk insurance to young people and keep charging older folks so much in [...]