Whistleblower Wendell Potter says the death of a young woman denied care by the insurance company he worked for was a turning point in his life; he says these practices are still taking place under the Affordable Care Act – on Reality Asserts Itself with Paul Jay
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I have been through Wise County, Virginia and Kingsport, Tennessee on my way to Georgia. Do not be surprised by what he said about what happened at the country fairgrounds.
And people want to keep that?
The interviewer is less entertaining and informing than the guest, but he speaks more.
Remember when the Right said Obamacare had death panels while ignoring the ones that they lobby for.
The US is the most immoral country on the planet.
Wow this is telling–our US medical system is broken–Medicare 4 all!
A real life example of utilitarianism.
Even if we move to Medicare for All it is still drastically too expensive. According to a recent video on this channel it would "only" save 3.3% of GDP. We are already close to 20% when other countries like the UK spend 7% and have everyone insured. This calculation basically assumes that prices with hospitals and doctors will not be renogotiated. But that is exactly what has to be done. 2/3 of Americans can't pay for medical expenses and it's a huge burden. Why are they allowed to charge prices most people cannot even remotely pay for and that are far above those in other industrialized countries? The medical lobby and all the workers they employ are a huge lobby to deal with and they will never want to give up these earnings. So as a result it's not even debated. Only Dean Baker dares to even talk about this.
If the Right is accusing the Left of wrong doing, that means they are already doing it.
A friend of mine worked at a call center that was a large employer in our area. They have since closed this location but the main customer was health insurance companies and their job was to deny every claim possible. They are average high school dropouts working for minimum wage, or just over, making taking calls from patients!
I can’t find part 1&2.
he and his friends got caught, then he had a change of heart.
then wendell sold all his extortion assets and donated them to non-profit health organizations, and he now lives in poverty. lol.
he did really well at extorting people's lives. Really well? Really?
Wendell has been calling out the industry for a lot of years now. Listen to him. He has the whole thing right.
Please put links when you tell people to watch previous episodes.
Wendell Potter was the main whistle-blower in Michael Moore's movie "Sicko". If you've never seen it, I highly recommend you do.
Our entire economy is based on death
I was alive before we had insurance in the 50s and 60s and people were never denied medical help. I also remember it not being difficult to access a specialist when my grandmother had a brain tumor and we had to pay cash for the surgery it was $10,000 back in 1964. Today my son had brain surgery last week and it was 850,000 and without insurance he now owes the medical industry 850,000 which he will never make because he is disabled. It took us a year and a half to get him into surgery at Davis.
Let's be clear. Publicly-funded health care must sometimes make the same life and death decisions based on cost and the likeliness of effectiveness. The difference is that those decisions are not arbitrarily made by people who are paid to deny coverage.
We (USPHS Rapid Deployment Force) did a similar operation at a high school in Pikeville Kentucky in conjunction with an organization called RAM & the University of Kentucky dental school for a free comprehensive clinic over a few days. It was a major evolution, months in planning & execution, and truly inspiring and heartbreaking. It should not be up to NGOs to provide basic preventative care, dentures, glasses, mammograms, basic women & men's health assessments, physical therapy consults, labs, etc. but in this "great" nation, for the poor and middle class, it is. The operation was replicated in other RDF-5 training evolutions due to its success in filling an unmet need in underserved communities. The fact that this is an issue at all is a global disgrace.
Death Panels…
The problem with capitalism and the "free" market is on full display in the health "don't give a shit" industry. No one ever feels like they could ever have enough so when decisions whether or not to do the right thing vs the short term gain come about, which way will imperfect humans who feel the subconscious pressure to have more decide? You guessed it, profits will almost certainly be the priority. Capitalism must have mechanisms to keep profiteers out of matters of life or death, period.
Talk about a guy trying to wash his conscience.
I’m grateful Wendell Potter finally found his moral compass, but let no one imagine that writing a few books and speaking out atones for years of defending the for-profit private insurance industry—especially since he still lives quite comfortably on the blood money profits earned by denying sick people access to health care.
Listen folks the three house (rep, senate, congress) is a for-profit enterprise working for the highest bidders. This explains why military industries get unlimited funding, private insurance racket is protected from med-for-all, and so on…
If this guy did his job ethically 1st time around this lady great possibly prolonged her life. What a disgrace have to go to extremes like protesting for health insurance co. to approve a claim.
I spent most of my life working for executives in the insurance industry, including CIGNA, Aetna, Travelers and more. The focus over my last 20 years was profit. Stock prices, trades, and catering to the Board and investors. It was torture the week before earnings were reported.
It is now more than just un-insurance in the Wise County, VA. That region is loosing the closest level I trauma center and Level III NICU in Kingsport, TN from a the merger that formed Ballad Health. There is very little local news coverage of a recent protest and the only person covering it is a social media journalist.
Perfect example of profit over people. Believe me it is not just health insurance that is making life, and death decisions for profit. The food industry is just as guilty of feeding the public foods that will make you ill, and prematurely kill you for profit.
Someone needs to go to prison
That's been going on 20 + years.
Private insurance is a despicable practice. Profit incentive defeats the purpose.
Some of us knew but most of us wanted to be capitalists. This is what "team" players do for the general population. Corporations have no morals.