Wendell Potter on Profits Before Patients

PBS
Last month, testimony in front of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation by a former health insurance insider named Wendell Potter made news even before it occurred: CBS NEWS headlined: “Cigna Whistleblower to Testify.” After Potter’s testimony the industry scrambled to do damage control: “Insurers defend rescissions, take heat for lack of transparency.”

In his first extended television interview since leaving the health insurance industry, Wendell Potter tells Bill Moyers why he left his successful career as the head of Public Relations for CIGNA, one of the nation’s largest insurers, and decided to speak out against the industry. “I didn’t intend to [speak out], until it became really clear to me that the industry is resorting to the same tactics they’ve used over the years, and particularly back in the early ’90s, when they were leading the effort to kill the Clinton plan.”

Potter began his trip from health care spokesperson to reform advocate while back home in Tennessee. Potter attended a “health care expedition,” a makeshift health clinic set up at a fairgrounds, and he tells Bill Moyers, “It was absolutely stunning. When I walked through the fairground gates, I saw hundreds of people lined up, in the rain. It was raining that day. Lined up, waiting to get care, in animal stalls. Animal stalls.”

Looking back over his long career, Potter sees an industry corrupted by Wall Street expectations and greed. According to Potter, insurers have every incentive to deny coverage — every dollar they don’t pay out to a claim is a dollar they can add to their profits, and Wall Street investors demand they pay out less every year. Under these conditions, Potter says, “You don’t think about individual people. You think about the numbers, and whether or not you’re going to meet Wall Street’s expectations.”

You can view Wendel Potter’s congressional testimony online or read the text.

You can learn more about Remote Area Medical, the organization that put on the “health care expedition” here.

Strategy Memos

During the interview, Bill Moyers read from confidential documents drafted by America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) in May and June of 2007. The documents outline a unified strategy for AHIP members to prepare for the release of Michael Moore’s documentary, SICKO on June 29, 2007.

You can download and read the full AHIP documents by clicking here and here (PDFs).

The Language of Health Care 2009 (PDF)
The Frank Luntz memo strategizing opposition to health care reform Bill Moyers mentions in the interview.

GOP Health Care Strategy (PDF)
Strategy memo by Alex Castellanos dated July 7, 2009.

[partial transcript of video]
July 10, 2009

BILL MOYERS: Wendell Potter joins us now. Welcome to the Journal.

WENDELL POTTER: Thank you very much for having me here.

BILL MOYERS: You worked for CIGNA 15 years and left last year.

WENDELL POTTER: I did.

BILL MOYERS: Were you pushed out?

WENDELL POTTER: I was not. I left– it was my decision to leave, and my decision to leave when I did.

BILL MOYERS: Were you passed over for a promotion?

WENDELL POTTER: Absolutely not. No.

BILL MOYERS: Had you been well-paid and rewarded by the company?

WENDELL POTTER: Very well-paid. And I, over the years, had many job opportunities, many bonuses, salary increases. So no, I was not. And in fact, there was no further place for me to go in the company. I was head of corporate communications and that was the ultimate PR job.

BILL MOYERS: Did you like your boss and the people you work with?

WENDELL POTTER: I did, and still do. I still respect them.

BILL MOYERS: And they gave you a terrific party when you left?

WENDELL POTTER: They sure did, yeah.

BILL MOYERS: So why are you speaking out now?

WENDELL POTTER: I didn’t intend to, until it became really clear to me that the industry is resorting to the same tactics they’ve used over the years, and particularly back in the early ’90s, when they were leading the effort to kill the Clinton plan.

BILL MOYERS: But during this 15 years you were there, did you go to them and say, “You know, I think we’re on the wrong side. I think we’re fighting the wrong people here.”

WENDELL POTTER: You know, I didn’t, because for most of the time I was there, I felt that what we were doing was the right thing. And that I was playing on a team that was honorable. I just didn’t really get it all that much until toward the end of my tenure at Cigna.

BILL MOYERS: What did you see?

WENDELL POTTER: Well, I was beginning to question what I was doing as the industry shifted from selling primarily managed care plans, to what they refer to as consumer-driven plans. And they’re really plans that have very high deductibles, meaning that they’re shifting a lot of the cost off health care from employers and insurers, insurance companies, to individuals. And a lot of people can’t even afford to make their co-payments when they go get care, as a result of this. But it really took a trip back home to Tennessee for me to see exactly what is happening to so many Americans. I–

BILL MOYERS: When was this?

WENDELL POTTER: This was in July of 2007.

BILL MOYERS: You were still working for Cigna?

WENDELL POTTER: I was. I went home, to visit relatives. And I picked up the local newspaper and I saw that a health care expedition was being held a few miles up the road, in Wise, Virginia. And I was intrigued.

BILL MOYERS: So you drove there?

WENDELL POTTER: I did. I borrowed my dad’s car and drove up 50 miles up the road to Wise, Virginia. It was being held at a Wise County Fairground. I took my camera. I took some pictures. It was a very cloudy, misty day, it was raining that day, and I walked through the fairground gates. And I didn’t know what to expect. I just assumed that it would be, you know, like a health– booths set up and people just getting their blood pressure checked and things like that.

But what I saw were doctors who were set up to provide care in animal stalls. Or they’d erected tents, to care for people. I mean, there was no privacy. In some cases– and I’ve got some pictures of people being treated on gurneys, on rain-soaked pavement.

And I saw people lined up, standing in line or sitting in these long, long lines, waiting to get care. People drove from South Carolina and Georgia and Kentucky, Tennessee– all over the region, because they knew that this was being done. A lot of them heard about it from word of mouth.

There could have been people and probably were people that I had grown up with. They could have been people who grew up at the house down the road, in the house down the road from me. And that made it real to me.

BILL MOYERS: What did you think?

WENDELL POTTER: It was absolutely stunning. It was like being hit by lightning. It was almost– what country am I in? I just it just didn’t seem to be a possibility that I was in the United States. It was like a lightning bolt had hit me.