The Health Insurance Industry’s ‘Duplicitous’ Campaign To Kill Health Care Reform
ThinkProgress spoke with Wendell Potter, a former VP of communications at health insurance giant CIGNA, about exactly how insurance companies derail reform and preserve the status quo. Working in public relations for CIGNA, Potter had a direct role in multiple campaigns in the past to minimize public outrage at insurance company abuses, defeat legislation aimed at regulating insurers, and the massive effort to discredit Michael Moore and his movie SiCKO. In addition to enormous amounts of money spent in direct lobbying and campaign contributions, Potter spelled out precisely how insurance companies have prepared to defeat meaningful reform.
More on this strategic campaign and how it works (and who is working it) is outlined Here at ThinkProgress.org
on December 15th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
I would like to pose this question to any Senator worth their salt (assuming the senator is not a attorney). Why is TORT REFORM not a major component of this bill? Studies performed by www.BenefitsManager.net and www.DentalInsuranceUtah.net that liability insurance costs are approaching nearly one third of the operating expenses for specialty care physicians, units and facilities. Aside from medical provider costs, insurance carriers such as Humana Health Plans state that their costs of medical liability and defensive medicine accounts for nearly 10 cents out of every premium dollar collected (verified). Compare that to Humana’s reported pharmaceutical claims of 15 cents out of every premium dollar collected. Or better yet, 21 cents out of every premium dollar collected is paid back to physicians for physician treatments. Without TORT REFORM, medical provider costs will never drop.