OC reminded me of this Bill Moyers/Wendall Powell interview I saw a couple of weeks ago. Although OC’s interest lies with the medical cost ratio, and blaming the people who own the stock (you, maybe me), my interest lies merely with bringing this to your attention, in case you missed it.
Wendall Powell, a former longstanding top level executive at Cigna verbalizes truths you might already expect. The interview contains information some of us have heard before. We’ve heard this from people we know working within the industry, within the spectrum of politics, or with people who have had to fight for coverage. This my friends is not bullshit. This is what has been happening, and will continue to happen to all you stupid people, being used as patsies, out there trying to disrupt town halls like drunk college frat boys disrupt poetry readings.
The health care industry is not opposed to mandatory health care, they support that, but they oppose government competition and regulation — now forcing something called consumer driven health care, one of the worst rip-offs they’ve yet to come up with, and something that has them sitting pretty on a pile of profits. The industry will do anything to bring down anything that threatens their pile of gold.
Powell, head of Cigna’s coorporate communications for years, a position at the top of the company, took part in the industry’s discrediting Michael Moore’s Movie Sicko, by targeted attacks on Moore’s credibility, and slamming him with the Hollywood label. Why? Because the insurance industry feared the truth.
Powell admits now that SICKO “hit the nail on the head”. ”
The Michael Moore movie that I saw was full of truth.” … They manipulate public opinion and the news media and they have built up these relationships with all these politicians through campaign contributions.”
Powell was also part of the effort to kill the Clinton plan. He see’s what’s happening now as the same tactic used in that era.
The industry doesn’t want to have any competitor. In fact, over the course of the last few years, has been shrinking the number of competitors through a lot of acquisitions and mergers. So first of all, they don’t want any more competition period. They certainly don’t want it from a government plan that might be operating more efficiently than they are. The Medicare program that we have here is a government-run program that has administrative expenses that are like three percent or so.
I have a memo written by Frank Luntz. He’s the Republican strategist who we discovered, in the spring, has written the script for opponents of health care reform. “First,” he says, “you have to pretend to support it. Then use phrases like, “government takeover,” “delayed care is denied care,” “consequences of rationing,” “bureaucrats, not doctors prescribing medicine.”
And because my opinion, as discussed here previously, is that an unregulated insurance industry, one with no competition is unethical….
Well, they are ideologically aligned with the industry. They want to believe that the free market system can and should work in this country, like it does in other industries. So they don’t understand from an insider’s perspective like I have, what that actually means, and the consequences of that to Americans.They parrot those comments, without really realizing what the real situation is.
The insurance industry is frightened by government health care, Frightened by competition. They know it could work and they don’t want competition. They don’t want anything that could decrease the profits, especially now that the new consumer driven programs are bringing in record profits for them and their stockholders. They lobby, they resist regulation, they radicalize anyone who exposes them, and they threaten legislators who oppose them with the same treatment they gave Michael Moore.
The redux of the full video, which is around 50 minutes long. It can also be found in segments on You Tube.
The compete transcript can be found here. I enthusiastically suggest reading the interview.
A comments off FYI production.
peace
