By ruling out single payer, Congress and Obama have committed themselves to the false proposition that Americans are so enamored of their existing insurance plans that they are not prepared to give them up. This idea is at the core of the relentless propaganda employed by the insurance/medical/pharmaceutical industry complex in their attempt to maintain their stranglehold on a system designed to deliver profits before actual care.

www.counterpunch.org

Your Health Shouldn’t Come Between The Insurance Company and Its Profits!






Executive Salaries of Insurance Companies

Jul 27, 2009

H. Edward Hanway, Chair/CEO, Cigna Corp., $30.16 million

Ronald A. Williams, Chair/CEO, Aetna Inc., $23, 045, 834 (2007)

David B. Snow, Jr, Chair/CEO, Medco Health, $21.76 million

Dale B. Wolf, CEO, Coventry Health Care, $20.86 million

Michael B. MCallister, CEO, Humana Inc., $20.06 million

Jay M. Gellert, President/CEO, Health Net, $16.65 million

full listing:

www.prosperityagenda.us

Wendell Potter on Profits Before Patients

July 31, 2009

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."

entire article:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07312009/profile.html