On July 10, 2009 Wendell Potter made an appearance on the PBS program Bill Moyers Journal. Potter was head of CIGNA’s Corporate Communications department — a position he attained during his 15 year career at CIGNA. In the interview Wendell Potter states he resigned after his conscience got the best of him.
One of the books I read as I was trying to make up my mind here was President Kennedy’s “Profiles in Courage.”
And in the forward, Robert Kennedy said that one of the president’s, one of his favorite quotes was a Dante quote that, “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of moral crisis, maintain a neutrality.” And when I read that, I said, “Oh, jeez, I– you know. I’m headed for that hottest place in hell, unless I say something.”
At the end of the show Bill Moyers and Wendell Potter discuss the future goals for the health insurance industry and lobby.
BILL MOYERS: For the government to require every one of us to have some policy.
WENDELL POTTER: Exactly. And that sounds great. It is an important thing that everyone be enrolled in some kind of a benefit plan. They e { margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } –>[the health insurance companies] don’t want a public plan. They want all the uninsured to have to be enrolled in a private insurance plan. They want– they see those 50 million people as potentially 50 million new customers. So they’re in favor of that. They see this as a way to essentially lock them into the system, and ensure their profitability in the future. The strategy is as it was in 1993 and ‘94, to conduct this charm offensive on the surface. But behind the scenes, to use front groups and third-party advocates and ideological allies. And those on Capitol Hill who are aligned with them, philosophically, to do the dirty work.
That’s what Robert Bennett’s Healthy Americans Act will do — require every person in the United States to enroll in a corporate health insurance plan.
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