A new book entitled Deadly Spin hits the shelves today; it is an insider's look at the healthcare industry. The book is written by the former Chief Corporate Spokesperson of CIGNA, and starts as follows:
"My name is Wendell Potter, and for twenty years, I worked as a senior executive at
health insurance companies, and I saw how they confuse their customers and
dump the sick -- all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors."
In an article on HuffingtonPost.com, the author writes how the book describes the following:
- That the health insurance industry played a central role "in the fear-mongering and anger-mongering campaign against the Democrats' original vision of reform, which included a "public option" that would have competed against private insurance companies and which President Obama said early in the debate was necessary to "keep insurers honest." "
"Insurers were able to kill the public option and weaken the reform bill, but it couldn't kill it. Despite conventional wisdom, insurers didn't want to kill it because the requirement that all Americans buy private coverage if they're not eligible for a public program like Medicare and Medicaid will ensure their profitability for years to come."
"They do, however, want to weaken the bill further, which is why the industry funneled millions of policyholders' premiums this year into the campaigns of Republican candidates and round-the-clock advertising based on lies about the new reform law."
- "the meticulously planned and deception-based strategy the health insurance industry developed and carried out -- with help from one of Washington's biggest PR firms -- to discredit documentary maker Michael Moore and his 2007 movie, Sicko"
The health care industry "spent a big chunk of policyholders' premiums on a behind-the-scenes campaign to demonize Moore and to misinform Americans about the health-care systems in Canada and Europe that -- as Moore explained in the movie -- provide coverage for all their citizens and provide high quality care for them at much lower costs than we do in the U.S.""The industry's high-paid PR consultants...assur[ed] the executives that the industry's trade association, America's Health Insurance Plans, would wage an all-out effort to depict Moore as someone intent on destroying the free-market health care system and with it, the American way of life."
- "how a huge share of Americans' health-care premiums bankrolls relentless propaganda and lobbying efforts focused on protecting one thing: profits"
"how the industry's PR onslaught ... plays an insidious and often invisible role in our political process anywhere that corporate profits are at stake, from climate change to defense policy"
[emphasis mine]
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