Corporate profits before patients?

Moyers interviews corporate insider-whistleblower

Americans collectively spend between $2.2 and 2.4 trillion dollars on health care annually. Some say that is the main reason the present effort to create a universal health care system for Americans is long overdue. Economists tell us that the enormous cost of America's health care creates a drag on an already ailing U.S. economy and is unsustainable.

It is important to note that if we don’t already have a universal health care system in place it isn’t for lack of trying. Presidents going back to at least Franklin Delano Roosevelt and according to some, Theodore Roosevelt, have attempted to create a health care system for all without success. The most recent failed effort was that of the Clinton Administration in the early 1990’s.

These efforts to provide all Americans with affordable health care are apparently at odds with the insurance industry. At least it would seem so since the insurance industry is pouring one million dollars a day into defeating the idea of a public option health care plan.

According to one whistleblower the millions being spent by the insurance industry are behind the negative ads popping up across America as well as for the scripted partisan resistance posed by conservative politicians.

The mantra is that a "public option" or "single payer" system is "socialism" and that "Americans don’t want a bureaucrat between them and their doctor or health care provider." The question begs, "If that is so, why would Americans be any more willing to have a corporate wonk between them and their provider?" That’s been the case since HMOs were started up in the mid 1980s.

Health care is an important concern in San Antonio, Texas. The city experiences a number of health care related issues such as obesity, diabetes and hypertension. Though San Antonio is the seventh largest city in the nation it lags behind many much smaller cities in providing even the most basic of health care. The Alamo City also routinely places in the top ten fattest cities in the country. In 2009 it ranks as the third fattest city.

Not coincidentally of the 50 states Texas ranks second worst in health care coverage behind number one New Mexico. Additionally six of the 10 counties providing the lowest health coverage for "all age groups" in the entire nation are also located in Texas.

Given the dismal state of health care in Texas it is interesting that both its U.S. senators are on record as opposing the Obama Administration’s efforts to provide affordable health care especially in the form of the public option. Interestingly both Senator Hutchinson and Senator Cornyn qualify for one of the best insurance plans around the FEHBP. So what they deny to their constituents in particular and Americans in general they enjoy--- a quality health care system known as the Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan (FEHBP).

There are few independent voices on the issue of health care. The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) part of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is one of those.

Friday night’s (31 July 2009) PBS broadcast of Bill Moyers Journal discussed the issue with health insurance insider and whistleblower, Wendell Potter. It was an eye-opener. A link to the interview follows and can be viewed online. 

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.""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."

Bill Moyers Journal Wendell Potter on Profits Before Patients