An Insider Blows the Whistle

Wendell Potter

Fancy jets and lavish meals were all in a day's work for insurance executive Wendell Potter. But his conscience caught up with him.

Wendell Potter was head of corporate communications for a major insurance company for 15 years. Then one day in 2007, he stopped by a clinic that a medical relief group was holding in rural Wise, Virginia.

Potter was shocked to see fairground animal stalls filled with volunteer doctors treating endless lines of U.S. citizens, like something you'd see in a third world country. "It was like being hit by lightning," Potter told Bill Moyers in a television report, "Profits Before Patients."

Potter left his job at Cigna several months later and has made getting the truth out about the health insurance industry his mission, testifying before Congress and working for real reform. He joined the Center for Media and Democracy as a senior health care fellow in June 2009.

Potter left his job at Cigna, the country's fourth largest health insurance company, "because I did not want to be involved in yet another PR and lobbying campaign to kill or gut health care reform. I finally came to question the ethics of what I had done and been a part of for nearly two decades," he said.

He told Moyers about flying on corporate jets and being served lavish meals on gold-rimmed plates, standard practice for insurance executives, he said.

He knew tens of millions of Americans were struggling to pay for health care, even if they had insurance. In fact, many of the patients at the free clinic he witnessed were insured, but couldn't afford the out-of-pocket costs. "When you're in the executive offices…you don't think about individual people," he said. "You think about the numbers and whether or not you're going to meet Wall Street's expectations."

Potter said Michael Moore's 2007 movie, "Sicko," "hit the nail on the head." The industry knew it, and feared it. With Potter's help, insurance companies launched a fierce campaign to discredit the film, specifically targeting Democrats who might be persuaded by its call for reform. Soon politicians and ordinary Americans were spouting industry talking points. The plan "worked beautifully," Potter said.

Bill Moyers' full interview with Potter is in the archives at www.pbs.org/moyers.

Check out Potter's blog at http://www.prwatch.org/blog/35267.