Submitted by Anne Landman on
Multimillionaire former hospital CEO Rick Scott, founder of the anti-health care reform group Conservatives for Patients Rights, last week distributed a memo to allied groups fighting health insurance reform to try and coordinate the groups' opposition to the so-called "public option." In the memo, Scott wrote that health care
Submitted by Lisa Graves on
The week's Philadelphia Inquirer describes the "foot soldiers" in the fight over health care reform and ways people on all sides of the issue are getting involved in this struggle.
Listen to the great journalist Greg Palast interview the Center for Media and Democracy's Wendell Potter about the way local insurance monopolies thwart reform. In the interview, Wendell considers whether Senator Olympia Snowe's support for reforms without a public option is naive or disingenuous. This past week, Wendell was on C-Span, MSNBC, the BBC, and MSNBC again, among other news shows. Below is the audio from his full interview on BBC:
Submitted by Lisa Graves on
The Center for Media and Democracy's Wendell Potter is featured in this weekend's West Virginia Gazette. He was in Charleston along with Senator Jay Rockefeller, who has been pressing for a public option as part of health insurance reform.
(The following op-ed appeared in the Bangor Daily News, on Saturday, October 17, 2009.)
Insurance companies are hot targets right now in the debate over skyrocketing medical costs and health care reform.
But there is another, little-noticed factor could also be sucking untold health care dollars out of our pockets, and it's one we seem loathe to address: the part that doctors themselves have in quietly pushing up the costs of our medical care. This is an area that is begging for closer scrutiny, and in which patients need more help.
Submitted by Lisa Graves on
This weekend's Bangor Daily News editorializes in favor of the public option and quotes the Center for Media and Democracy's Senior Fellow, Wendell Potter. Maine is a particularly crucial state in the health insurance reform debate because Senator Olympia Snowe is considered one of the only Republicans in the Senate who might possibly support reforms that are essential to a successful transformation of the nation's health care system.
Submitted by John Stauber on
A business news website notes, "Since early summer Wendell Potter, a former public relations executive for the health insurer CIGNA, has testified before Congress, given speeches and granted interviews aimed at boosting the cause of health care reform and especially a strong public alternative to private industry.
This week's issue of Rolling Stone has an illuminating article, "The Lie Machine," by Tim Dickinson on anti-heath reform spin. Dickinson's article quotes internal corporate memos showing how Big Tobacco spun media stories about health care reform in 1994 and how its progeny are striking again.
If you had any doubt about who some Senators on the Senate Finance Committee really, truly care about, consider their recent votes. Just look at the votes against creating a public option to compete against private insurers. Then, consider the giddy response of the industry, according to an article in the trade press:
"We are pleased by the rejection of both the Rockefeller and the Schumer amendments containing public plan options," says Tom Currey, president of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, Falls Church, Va.... America's Health Insurance Plans, Washington, is also welcoming committee rejection of the amendments. "The government-run plan is a roadblock to reform," AHIP spokesman Robert Zirkelbach says.... "[W]e are very pleased with this outcome," says Janet Trautwein, president of the National Association of Health Underwriters, Arlington, Va.
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