The Illusory Promise of Free-Market Healthcare Miracles

By Wendell Potter for The Center for Public Integrity – While listening to the promises to repeal ObamaCare during the Republican National Convention, I was reminded of what those of us in the health insurance industry said when our friends in Congress were able to block passage of President Clinton’s health care reform legislation 18…

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ACA Vs. Single Payer: Bury the Hatchet?

From PNHP – The Nation, Aug. 28, 2012 PNHP note: The following exchange among PNHP co-founders Dr. Steffie Woolhandler and Dr. David Himmelstein, attorney Oliver Hall, and former health-insurance-executive-turned-whistleblower Wendell Potter was prompted by an article by Potter titled “Healthcare advocates: Time to bury the hatchet” in the July 11 online edition of The Nation.…

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Michael Moore, Wendell Potter, SiCKO’s in Philly June 30th

Still SiCKO After All These Years Saturday, June 30th, 2012. – 7 PM Plays and Players Theater, 1714 Delancy Street, Philadelphia, PA $40 Minimum Donation. Tickets Available On-line. First Come, First Served. Go Here: http://tiny.cc/sicko5 Michael Moore’s documentary SiCKO was released in 2007 to widespread acclaim. A straight-from-the-heart portrait of the crazy and sometimes cruel…

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Insurance firms seeking to sow doubt about single-payer in Vermont

By Wendell Potter for IWatchNews.org – You can’t see them. They’re hidden from view and probably always will be. But the health insurance industry’s big guns are in place and pointed directly at the citizens of Vermont. Health insurers were not able to stop the state’s drive last year toward a single-payer health care system,…

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When Medicare Isn’t Medicare

By Wendell Potter for the Huffington Post – Let’s say you have a Ford and decide to replace everything under the hood with Hyundai parts, including the engine and transmission. Could you still honestly market your car as a Ford? That question gets at the heart of the controversy over who is being more forthright…

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Health Insurers Have Had Their Chance

By Wendell Potter for Huffington Post – Of the many supporters of a single-payer health care system in the United States, some of the most ardent are small business owners who have struggled to continue offering coverage to their workers. Among them are David Steil, a small business owner and former Republican — yes, Republican…

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The Insurers’ Real Agenda for Change

By Wendell Potter for the Huffington Post – The media had lots of health care news to obsess about last week. A federal judge ruled the health care reform law unconstitutional, and Senate Republicans tried in vain to repeal the law. But most of the press paid virtually no attention to a potentially much more…

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Wendell Potter on “Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out”

From Democracy NOW! – In the wake of the midterm elections, Republican lawmakers are vowing to repeal or defund the Democrats’ landmark healthcare reform bill that President Obama signed into law earlier this year. A health insurance insider-turned-whistleblower argues that, instead of repealing the law altogether, Republicans will ultimately settle for gutting the law of…

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For-Profit Insurers Leaning on Regulators to “Reform” Health Reform

By Wendell Potter for Huffington Post – The nation’s biggest insurers — not happy with provisions of the four-month-old health care reform law that would force many of them to spend more of the money they collect in premiums for their policyholders’ medical care — are pressuring regulators to disregard what members of Congress intended…

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