Opponents suggest that a “government takeover” of health care will be a milestone on the road to “socialized medicine,” and when he hears those
terms, Wendell Potter cringes. He’s embarrassed that opponents are using a playbook that he helped devise. Nicholas D. Kristof
Nicholas Kristof addresses reader feedback and posts short takes from his travels.
Wendell Potter “Over the years I helped craft this messaging and deliver it,” he noted. Mr. Potter was an executive in the health insurance industry for nearly 20 years before his conscience got the better of him. He served as head of corporate communications for Humana and then for Cigna. He flew in corporate jets to industry meetings to plan how to block health reform, he says. He rode in limousines to confabs to concoct messaging to scare the public about reform. But in his heart, he began to have doubts as the business model for insurance evolved in recent years from spreading risk to dumping the risky.
Then in 2007 Mr. Potter attended a premiere of “Sicko,” Michael Moore’s excoriating film about the American health care system. Mr. Potter was taking notes so that he could prepare a propaganda counterblast &151 but he found himself agreeing with a great deal of the film.