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Excluded Voices - An interview with Wendell Potter
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| Contributor | RP |
| Last Edited | RP Jun 24, 2009 07:44pm |
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| Category | Interview |
| Author | Trudy Lieberman |
| News Date | Wednesday, June 24, 2009 10:30:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Campaign Desk sat down with Wendell Potter, a former head of corporate communications for CIGNA, the country’s fourth-largest insurer, and now a senior fellow on health care at the Center for Media and Democracy. Potter, who also spent four years at Humana, left the industry in 2008 after nearly twenty years of promoting its messages.
Trudy Lieberman: Why did you leave CIGNA?
Wendell Potter: I didn’t want to be part of another health insurance industry effort to shape reform that would benefit the industry at the expense of the public.
TL: Was there anything in particular that turned you against the industry?
WP: A couple of years ago I was in Tennessee and saw an ad for a health expedition in the nearby town of Wise, Virginia. Out of curiosity I went and was overwhelmed by what I saw. Hundreds of people were standing in line to get free medical care in animal stalls. Some had camped out the night before in the rain. It was like being in a different country. It moved me to tears. Shortly afterward I was flying in a corporate jet and realized someone’s insurance premiums were paying for me to fly that way. I knew it wasn’t long before I had to leave the industry. It was like my road to Damascus.
TL: What was so upsetting about the industry that pushed you over the edge?
WP: I was in a unique position to know how companies made money—what they had to do to satisfy shareholders—and how the industry has been able to kill reform in the past. I had been part of those efforts and didn’t want to be part of them again. |
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