Wendell Potter, a former healthcare executive told Bill Moyers that Michael Moore’s “Sicko” was on target. Potter agrees with Moore that there is a significant role for government in healthcare and that government systems such as Canada and Great Britain are successful, contrary to the vicious and dishonest spin by the American healthcare industry. Note: For 20 years, Potter was head of corporate communications for one of the country’s largest insurers, CIGNA.
Wendell Potter also sat down with Amy Goodman to discuss the American medical care system. Here's an issue that resonates with me. Why should there be ANY for-profit health insurance companies?
AMY GOODMAN: Should there be for-profit health insurance companies in this country?
WENDELL POTTER: You know, interesting. One of the big champions of the so-called consumer-directed plans is a woman named Regina Herzlinger. She’s a professor at Harvard and is kind of considered the guru of consumer-directed plans. She often talks about the Swiss system as something that the US might look at as a model, because they presumably have something like a consumer-directed care there. They do have private insurance companies that operate there. The interesting thing is that she doesn’t mention too much, or at all, for that matter, is that while there are insurance companies that operate there, for-profit insurance companies are illegal in Switzerland, and they are very highly regulated. And they all have to offer standard benefit plans. And so, there’s nothing like the kind of system that we have here.
I think, in many ways, it might not be a bad model to look at, because there are no for-profit companies that operate there. Some of the companies even in this country do sell supplemental products in Asia and Europe. But I kind of think the Swiss are onto something. If they don’t allow for-profit insurance companies to operate, there must be some good reasons why they think that should be the way it is.
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Potter also made it clear that the lack of a public option in a national health care plan would be "disastrous":
I think it would be absolutely disastrous for the administration to even consider signing legislation that doesn’t include a strong public plan. You’re exactly right. And I think many, many people voted for Barack Obama because of his healthcare platform and the things that he said he felt were vital in terms of reform. The inclusion of a public insurance plan is paramount, it is absolutely necessary, and I would hope that people who voted for him and people who are uninsured, who are underinsured, will make sure that he understands that.
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/16/former_insu…
Alternet's mcjoan deftly takes apart the RNC's talking points on health care. http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/141471/gop_hea…