Bill Moyers Journal- Health Reform on the Table
July 10, 2009
Bill Moyers interviews Wendell Potter, a former CIGNA Vice President, the country's fourth largest health insurance company. Potter offers an insider view into the insurance industry and the quest for profits.
They discuss, among other things, the way the insurance industry uses scare tactics to discredit reform efforts, and professes to offer concessions and market reforms calling it their "charm offensive". Mr. Potter offers some very blunt admissions and observations.
"We shouldn't fear government involvement in our health care system. That there is an appropriate role for government, and it's been proven in the countries that were in that movie. (He is referring to Sicko)
You know, we have more people who are uninsured in this country than the entire population of Canada. And that if you include the people who are underinsured, more people than in the United Kingdom. We have huge numbers of people who are also just a lay-off away from joining the ranks of the uninsured, or being purged by their insurance company, and winding up there.
And another thing is that the advocates of reform or the opponents of reform are those who are saying that we need to be careful about what we do here, because we don't want the government to take away your choice of a health plan. It's more likely that your employer and your insurer is going to switch you from a plan that you're in now to one that you don't want. You might be in the plan you like now.
But chances are, pretty soon, you're going to be enrolled in one of these high deductible plans in which you're going to find that much more of the cost is being shifted to you than you ever imagined"
Wendell Potter recently testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, 
Science and Transportation.
Read the interview with Wendell Potter
Read Potter's congressional testimony