Flickr image by Center for American Progress
Wendell Potter has been in the news quite a bit lately. He's the former health insurance industry executive who is now speaking out about industry practices as we debate how to reform our current system of care. Welcome to OpEdNews, Wendell. Can you give our readers a bit of background about yourself?
I sure can. I'm a former journalist. I was a reporter and worked in Washington for a few years before I got into public relations. And I worked in the insurance industry for almost twenty years in the public relations and communications capacity and, most recently, head of corporate communications for CIGNA. I left that job in May of 2008.
While you were a PR executive, your job was to give health insurance a positive spin. Was that hard to do? Were you unaware of what was going on across the country?
For most of my career, I didn't feel conflicted. I felt strongly for many years in my career that the industry's intent was to get more people covered, and to add more people in plans that would actually get them the care they needed. It was only in the latter part of my career that I became aware that the health insurance industry was contributing more and more to the problem of the uninsured and to a growing and fairly new problem of the underinsured. And as I also climbed the corporate ladder, I was more aware of the kinds of health care plans that the insurance companies were trying to move us all into. They all featured high deductibles. And it was clear to me that middle Americans, people who are average wage-earners, sooner or later will not be able to afford to access care even if they have insurance because of the high deductibles they are expected to meet.
It was a gradual understanding of the health insurance industry that took place over the course of a few years. But there were a couple of events that made it more abundantly clear to me just exactly how much of a problem we have in this country. That occurred when I was visiting my parents in Tennessee a couple of summers ago and I saw in a local newspaper that an event was being held in Wise County, Virginia, which is fifty miles up the road from where I grew up in East Tennessee. I borrowed my dad's car and drove up there because I was curious. It was being organized by this group called Remote Area Medical - it was a group that originally came together to fly doctors to South America to provide care to people in the Amazon jungle area. The founder of the organization, Stan Brock, realized pretty soon that there was a huge need for care in this country. So he started holding what he called expeditions in areas across the country and he's held, I think, over 500 expeditions so far.
The one I went to in Wise County was one that has been held every year for eight years. And it was held at the Fairgrounds in Wise County. When I got to the Fairground gates, I saw thousands of people lined up, waiting to get care that was being provided to them on a charity basis by doctors and nurses and other caregivers who were volunteering their time over three days. And these people were lined up, many of them to get care that was being provided in animal stalls and in barns. It was raining that day and a lot of these people were standing in the rain and many of them had slept overnight in their cars to be assured of getting inside the Fairgrounds to get care. It was so just amazing to me.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
2
1
1
