A health insurance executive changes sides

Wendell Potter is a former executive at health insurance giant Cigna. In testimony before Congress today, he provided an insider’s view of the insurance industry. On his blog he’s posted a moving description of his decision to leave his 20-year career, which had been lucrative and successful, and play on the other team for health care reform.
As a Public Relations professional, Potter was very aware that the industry used behind-the-scenes PR and lobbying. The insurance industry opposes any health care reform that might reduce their profits. He was also aware that industry practices were responsible for the growing number of uninsured.

What I saw happening over the past few years was a steady movement away from the concept of insurance and toward “individual responsibility” … a continuous shifting of the financial burden of health care costs away from insurers and employers and onto the backs of individuals.

Potter’s job required that he put a positive spin on this trend, which the industry labeled “consumerism” and “consumer-driven” health plans. For a while he thought he could stomach the few remaining years before his retirement. But a chance event changed his life.
While visiting his “folks” in Tennessee, he saw a notice for a nearby health “expedition.” Volunteer doctors, nurses and other medical professionals would be providing free medical care. The event was organized by a non-profit group designed to provide such care to remote villages in South America.

Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw when I reached the Wise County Fairgrounds … Hundreds of people had camped out all night in the parking lot to be assured of seeing a doctor or dentist when the gates opened. By the time I got there, long lines of people stretched from every animal stall and tent where the volunteers were treating patients.
That scene was so visually and emotionally stunning it was all I could do to hold back tears. How could it be that citizens of the richest nation in the world were being treated this way?

A few weeks later, on a corporate jet, eating off gold-rimmed china with a gold-plated fork:

I realized for the first time that someone’s insurance premiums were paying for me to travel in such luxury. I also realized that one of the reasons those people in Wise County had to wait in long lines to be treated in animal stalls was because our Wall Street-driven health care system has created one of the most inequitable health care systems on the planet.

Potter resigned from his job last year. Only recently has he decided to speak out, as a former insider, against the insurance industry and its allies. He was disturbed that the insurance and drug industries, medical device makers, business groups, and the American Medical Association were so successful in driving health care reform. When members of Congress speak of reform, he knows first hand that their talking points are supplied by the insurance industry. And that they’re crafted to scare people away from reform.

[W]henever you hear a politician or pundit use the term “government-run health care” and warn that the creation of a public health insurance option that would compete with private insurers (or heaven forbid, a single-payer system like the one Canada has) will “lead us down the path to socialism,” know that the original source of the sound bite most likely was some flack like I used to be.

Potter left his employer on the best of terms. No bridges were burned, and he considered a position at another insurance company. He missed being part of a team of players. But ultimately he realized he’d been playing on the wrong side.
He cautions readers about what will happen now that he’s speaking out. The PR network he himself once managed will feed information to lawmakers and the media that’s designed to discredit him.
Potter concludes:

The people of Wise County and every county deserve much better than to be left behind to suffer or die ahead of their time due to Wall Street’s efforts to keep our government from ensuring that all Americans have real access to first-class health care.

Sources:

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Wendell Potter, The Health Care Industry vs. Health Reform, Center for Media and Democrary, June 24, 2009