Ex-insider: Insurance industry report is bogus

Source: CNN.com

Wendell Potter worked for two different insurance companies in the past, and now he’s working against them to help get reform passed. He says the claims from this new report from an insurance industry trade group are just not true.

Potter: It’s just not true, because they’re taking the parts of the bill that the industry now does not like. What the Finance Committee did, fortunately, toward the end of last week was reduce some of the very, very severe penalties that the insurance industry wanted to have in the bill that would be assessed against us if we decide we don’t want to buy their overpriced and inadequate products that are often nothing more than fake insurance.

Potter: My money’s on the White House on this one, because I think that the people are behind the White House and the Congress and I think the industry knows that. This is a desperation move on the part of the insurance industry, because analysts are now somewhat concerned – Wall Street analysts – that the bill may not be absolutely, everything that the industry wants, and that’s what’s driving this – Wall Street’s expectations that this bill may not be everything they’d hoped and prayed for.

Potter: I think it already is. From what I’m hearing, people who have been trying and working really in good faith to get legislation passed are now knowing that a public option is one of the most important ways to try to keep this industry honest. Without the public option, you know, these companies will continue to have the free reign they’ve had over the last several years, and they will, indeed, raise our prices, our premiums to the point that we can’t afford them and more and more people will be in the ranks of the underinsured.



Read more: http://amfix.blogs.cnn.com/2009/10/13/insider-blasts-new-insurance-industry-report/

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Maybe you all saw the interview with on 'American Morning' with John Roberts, but this is the first I've read about Mr. Potter's comments on the AHIP report.

They have to massage the data until it comes up favorable to the client--in this case, the health insurance companies. Otherwise they would never get another consulting job.

in "backing him up" is just repeating what is on page 1 of the report. After the executive summary, of course.

Amazingly, everybody is surprised that PW would actually repeat what they had clearly said but which everybody seems to not read.

Sadly, I'm not surprised that everybody is surprised that they didn't actually know what the report said. Few probably read the report.

The inference you derive is that somebody sort-of/kind-of read the report and said what they thought relevant. Then the ever vigilant media, always ready to dig down and investigate things, simply parroted the partial source. It's always best not to post pre-digested or partially digested snippets, but the actual report. Perhaps both, for those who care enough to be outraged but not enough to actually read the cause of their outrage.

It's obviously a biased report because it clearly stated, right up front: "The reform packages under consideration have other provisions that we have not included in this analysis. We have not estimated the impact of the new subsidies on the net insurance cost to households. Also, if other provisions in health care reform are successful in lowering costs over the long term, those improvements would offset some of the impacts we have estimated." (P. 1.)

http://www.americanhealthsolution.org/assets/Reform-Resources/AHIP-Reform-Resources/PWC-Report-on-Costs-Final.pdf

I did see the interview this morning, and Mr. Potter came across very convincingly in my view. I was happy to see CNN giving him air time!

if there were real trust-busters in our government, there would be no insurance industry because no doubt they are violating so many regulations

they take a big cut of it and then tell you what medical procedures you can do, hold the insurance over your head, delay paying doctors or make them run around in circles of paperwork to clear their payments, and then move to cut you off if you get too sick. I would call that tactic reprehensible and hopefully the years of abuse they have leveled on people who have tried to make use of their 'insurance' will have reminded people of that.

mob activity, the "protection racket" in any big city, where they take your money for "protection" and if you don't pay, they screw you, and if you DO pay, they might screw you anyway!

I agree, maybe we can indict all insurance companies as some mob activity RICO scheme.

I betcha whoever took up the cause would get a good following of supporters who are looking for government officials to mind the store a little bit more than they have been on these issues.

You think an industry report being bogus is NEWS?

:rofl:

yes, it' news.