If you don’t know who Wendell Potter is, you should. A former 20 year high level executive at one of the country’s largest health insurers, he explains in simple, clear language who, how, and why the health insurance industry has, is, and will be screwing the American public yet again when it comes to obtaining affordable insurance for all. His blog can be found HERE.

Well America, get ready for another massive ass-fucking at the hands of our own health insurers (apologies for the strong language, but there really isn’t a better term for what is happening). At least this time you’ll have an insider’s view of how it works. Unless of course, you get off your collective asses and do something about it.

Mr. Potter, while certainly a part of the problem for many years, is doing all he can to expose the Insurance Industry for what it is so that you can see what is really happening to your health insurance. Enjoy.

September 14th I addressed a gathering at the Center for American Progress in Washington, DC and delivered these remarks:

It is easy to think of efforts to influence lawmakers as the exclusive domain of K Street lobbyists. Much has been said and written about the millions of dollars the special interests are spending on lobbying activities and the hundreds of lobbyists who are at work as we speak trying to shape health care reform legislation. Very little by comparison has been written about the millions of dollars that special interests are spending on PR activities to accomplish the same goal and that are vital to successful lobbying efforts.

One of the reasons I left my job at CIGNA, where I headed corporate communications and was part of the Legal & Public Affairs division, was because I did not want to be involved in yet another PR and lobbying campaign to kill or gut reform. I finally came to question the ethics of what I had done and been a part of for nearly two decades to influence decision-making and bill writing on Capitol Hill.

When I testified before the Senate Commerce Committee in late June, I told the senators how the industry has conducted duplicitous and well-financed PR and lobbying campaigns every time Congress has tried to reform our health care system, and how its current behind-scenes-efforts may well shape reform in a way that benefits Wall Street far more than average Americans. I noted that, just as they did 15 years ago when the insurance industry led the effort to kill the Clinton reform plan, it is using shills and front groups to spread lies and disinformation to scare Americans away from the very reform that would benefit them most. The industry, despite its public assurances to be good-faith partners with the President and Congress, has been at work for years laying the groundwork for devious and often sinister campaigns to manipulate public opinion.

The industry goes to great lengths to keep its involvement in these campaigns hidden from public view. I know from having served on numerous trade group committees and industry-funded front groups, however, that industry leaders are always full partners in developing strategies to derail any reform that might interfere with insurers’ ability to increase profits. My involvement in these groups goes back to the early ‘90s when insurers joined with other special interests to finance the activities of the Healthcare Leadership Council, which led a coordinated effort to scare Americans and members of Congress away from the Clinton plan.

A few years after that victory, the insurers formed a front group called the Health Benefits Coalition to kill efforts to pass a Patients Bill of Rights. While it was billed as a broad-based business coalition that was led by the National Federation of Independent Business and included the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Health Benefits Coalition in reality got the lion’s share of its funding and guidance from the big insurance companies and their trade associations.

Like most front groups, the Health Benefits Coalition was set up and run out of one of Washington’s biggest PR firms. The PR firm provided all the staff work for the Coalition while an executive with the NFIB, which has long been a close ally of the insurance industry, served as a front man.

One of the key strategies of the Health Benefits Coalition as it was gearing up for battle in late 1998 was to stir up support among conservative talk radio and other media. Among the tactics the PR firm implemented for the Coalition was to form alliances with important conservative groups, such as the Christian Coalition and the Family Research Council, to get them to send letters to Congress or appear at HBC press conferences. The Health Benefits Coalition also launched an advertising campaign in conservative media outlets. The message was that President Clinton owed a debt to the liberal base of the “Democrat” Party and would try to pay back that debt by advancing the type of big government agenda on health care that he failed to get in 1994. The tactics worked. Industry allies in Congress made sure the Patients’ Bill of Rights would not become law.

The insurance industry has funded several other front groups since then whenever the industry was under attack. It formed the Coalition for Affordable Quality Healthcare to try to improve the image of managed care in response to a constant stream of negative stories that appeared in the media in the late ‘90s and the first years of this decade. It funded another group with a different name about the same time when lawyers began filing class action lawsuits on behalf of doctors and patients. Like the Health Benefits Coalition, this one, called America’s Health Insurers, was created by and run out of a powerful Washington-based PR firm.

The insurance industry called on that same firm again in 2007 to help blunt the impact of Michael Moore’s movie, Sicko. The PR firm created and staffed a front group called Health Care America specifically to discredit Moore and to demonize the health care systems featured in the movie. The media contact for Health Care America was a vice president at the firm who had served previously in PR roles at the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and in the Bush administration.

The PR firm also activated conservative allies and enlisted the support of conservative talk show hosts, writers and editorial page editors to warn against a “government-takeover” of the U.S. care system. That is a term the industry uses often to scare people away from any additional involvement of the government in health care. Health Care America also placed ads in newspapers. One such ad, which appeared in Capitol Hill newspapers, carried this message, “In America, you wait in line to see a movie. In government-run health care systems, you wait to see a doctor.”

The PR firm’s work on behalf of the industry included feeding talking points to conservatives in the media and in Congress and placing columns and op-eds written for the industry’s friends in conservative and free-market think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute, Heritage, CATO, the Manhattan Institute and the Galen Institute.

With this history, you can rest assured that the insurance industry is up to the same dirty tricks, using the same devious PR practices it has used for many years, to kill reform this year, or even better, to shape it so that it benefits insurance companies and their Wall Street investors far more than average Americans.

The creation and funding of front groups and the use of shills on Capitol Hill and in the media are not the only tactics PR people use to support and enhance lobbying efforts. Other activities include, of course, the implementation of grassroots and grass-tops campaigns. But a much more subtle tactic is to provide supposedly accurate and objective information to “educate” members of Congress and their staffs.

Business Week recently described how health insurers, United Health Group in particular, have been hard at work behind the scenes providing a treasure trove of data to key senators. If lawmakers believe the information and date the insurers are feeding them is comprehensive and objective, they are mistaken. Corporate representatives, especially the PR people who work with the media and who write talking points, are masters at the selective use of data and disclosing only the information their employers want to be disclosed.

What does this all mean for our country and our democracy?

During my 20 years in corporate communications and public affairs, I participated in the steady growth and influence of largely invisible persuasion — and at a time when newsrooms are shrinking and investigative journalism seems to be vanishing. The number of PR people long ago surpassed the number of working journalists in this country. And that ratio of PR people to reporters will continue to grow. The clear winners as this shift occurs are big, rich corporations and other special interests. The losers are average Americans, most of whom are completely unaware how their thoughts and actions are being manipulated to achieve corporate goals on Capitol Hill.

THIS is the kind of stuff that’s meant when talking about “astroturf” organizations. It is this exact same process that is behind the tea-party protesters, birthers, and other organizations that are sponsored by shill groups like Dick Armey’s “FreedomWorks.”

You are being lied to, manipulated, and convinced to work against your own interests by these groups. If you don’t believe me, just ask insiders like Wendell Potter.

Bill Moyers did a great interview with Potter that can be seen HERE. Another very interesting Moyers show on healthcare reform and who’s influencing and controlling what ultimately gets done (or not done) can be found HERE and is highly recommended viewing.

Here is a bit more information on Wendell Potter.

One final note: Notice how the insurance companies, nearly all of the news media, and virtually 100% of right wing conservatives completely ignore Wendell Potter and the very damning statements he’s put forth about health insurers and the process of passing health care reform? I wonder why that is……

Because she and I are in similar straits when it comes to healthcare, and because I cannot say it any better than Jane Hamsher (blogs as “Digby”), I am going to post her thoughts today in their entirety. Hoping she doesn’t mind the actual copy and paste vs a link. Thanks, Digby! You rock like the Stones.
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Balking At Baucus

by digby

There’s a lot of talk today about the Baucus plan, and some serious sturm and drang over whether or not it actually presents an improvement in people’s lives. Matt Yglesias and Marcy Wheeler take on the question and both make good points although they come to different conclusions. The details on all this are, surprisingly, just being looked at, and it’s revealed that health care will still be expensive for the average, middle class person like me who has to buy insurance on the private market.

To that, I can only say, yup. And anyone over 45 who is self employed is fucked in the current system and not a whole lot better off under the proposed new one. For us, just being allowed to buy into Medicare at any price would be a dream come true since it covers everything and can’t be taken away. At my age, my friends are starting to drop with cancer, heart disease etc (which I’m sure they all deserve for having eaten fried snickers bars and everything, but still …) And my husband and I can’t buy even a crappy policy with gigantic deductibles and ridiculous out of pocket expenses for less than $550.00 a month. That’s a big bill, particularly for the self-employed whose income is often unpredictable. The Baucus plan isn’t going to improve much of anything for me. I’m an older,self-employed middle class American and I basically have to just keep my fingers crossed that I stay very healthy for the next 13 years or I’ll lose whatever sad retirement savings I have.

But we’re stuck with what is, not with what works, and the fact is that there will be some material improvements for people other than me and my useless middle aged loser cohort, and that’s something. The Baucus plan does provide some rather substantial help for the poor, caps out of pocket expenses (at a pretty high rate, but it’s better than most private insurance which pays out a total of about $3.72 when you add up all the exclusions.) But I’m very skeptical of the plan actually bringing improvement over the long haul for reasons that have little to do with the actual policies they contain (the final mix of which we can’t know yet.)

The problem is the politics. Any plan that forces the uninsured to pay their hard earned money to wealthy private insurance companies under penalty of law is a huge political risk. These are the same companies that have brought us to this place where people are routinely denied the care they were promised, lied to about what was covered, scammed into paying huge sums of money for no security and no guarantee. Health insurance companies have dealt with their customers in bad faith for years and years and now we are being told that everyone must pony up and pay them even more. For all the talk of reform, when you whittle this down, that one fact comes roaring back at you and it sticks hard in the craw of anyone who considers themselves progressive.

The Democrats simply do not understand that as much as many people mistrust the government and believe it is inept and malevolent, just as many mistrust the private sector and believe it is greedy and malevolent — and those beliefs don’t break down as neatly between right and left as one might think. What they are going to do is force the currently uninsured to write a check to a private company for a large sum of money every month, the subsidies for which will show up as some kind of “credit” on their tax returns. How do you think most people are going to mentally and emotionally process that expense? As a good deal or a bad one?

Income taxes which nobody particularly enjoys paying, are at least taken out of your paychecks before you see the money and are theoretically going to pay for things which go to the common good: defense, police, air traffic control, roads, “volcano monitoring” etc. The payroll tax goes into the pool for disability, medicare and social security — the safety net. But the for-profit health insurance business is in business to make money for its shareholders, period. And everybody knows that you simply can’t expect Wellpoint to not act like a capitalistic enterprise and try to make as much profit as they can from that transaction. We’ve just witnessed the Masters of the Universe thumb their noses at any call to decent human behavior even immediately after they nearly destroyed the financial system. Corporations are not designed to give a damn about anything but profits and they have the political system so wired that regulation is just another bargaining chip.

In any case, the insurance companies may be regulated under the law, but the remedy for the average person is to hire a lawyer and take them through the legal system all the way to that wholly owned industry subsidiary they call the Roberts Court. That’s a rather inefficient way to ensure that costs come down and people are covered. Especially since the people who are suing are probably dead by the time they get there.

Aside from its (dubious) merits as a cost control measure (which relies on that notorious commie concept of competition!)the public plan at least ensures that the people who object to being forced by law to contribute to obscene CEO salaries could choose instead to pay their money to a highly regulated non-profit government program. That program, rather than putting profits into the pockets of executives and shareholders, would put it back into the system to pay for more health care and would be structurally in place for future improvements. Since the party took Medicare for all Americans off the table before we even got here, it’s not too much to ask for at least that one paltry choice, especially since it actually solidifies the compact between the people and their government, something that Democrats should always be trying to do.

As for whether or not it’s a deal breaker, well that isn’t really up to me or you. It’s up to Barack Obama. I’m afraid that as much as we like to think we can “hold the progressives’ feet to the fire” on health care reform, it’s always been highly unlikely that at the end of the day progressive Democrats would vote against their new president on his signature piece of domestic legislation (which also happens to have been the Liberal Holy Grail for the past 60 years) no matter how much we might scream and yell and issue threats. Health care is not going to be the issue on which the left defies Barack Obama and bands together with Republicans to defeat him. If Obama wants to pass a Health Care reform bill that opens up Medicaid to more poor people, ostensibly regulates the insurance industry and provides some modest subsidies to the uninsured middle class, even if its a rube Goldberg set-up that is unlikely to be sustained, progressives are not going to be the ones to stop it. I’m sorry, they just aren’t. Obama himself must be persuaded that the public option is in his own and the country’s best interest for it to pass. And even then it might fail at the hands of the “centrist” corporate shills for whom this paltry effort goes too far.

The price that’s paid for a compromised Obama plan with meager subsidies and big mandates which line the pockets of insurance companies is likely to be very high indeed for the Democratic Party and its relationship to the middle class. Maybe they think they can finesse it, but the economy is likely to be in distress for some long time to come, more and more people are going to be thrown into the private insurance market and what they find is going to be far less than promised.

The riskiest thing Obama can do is to put in place a plan from which a majority of people will not see the benefit and many will see something worse. The beauty of social security was that every citizen had a stake in it. On health care, the only people anyone refers to as “stakeholders” are members of the medical industry. I think that tells you exactly where things went wrong.

Update: Here’s a nice headline:

Fines proposed for going without health insurance

AP – Tuesday, September 08, 2009 6:04:53 AM By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR

Americans who don’t get health insurance once the system is overhauled would be fined up to $3,800 under a proposal that circulated in Congress on Tuesday as Democratic leaders cast doubt on prospects for creating a government-run insurance plan.

Update II: Via dday below, I see that Baucus has provided for state level ombudsmen, which presumably would have to be accessed before any lawsuit could commence. So I feel pretty confident that they will work out the kinks in the regulatory scheme by 2109.

Update III: Belay that opinion that Baucus will be an improvement for the poor. Some working poor are likely to be worse off — because they can’t get a job:

The proposal has serious flaws, including the following:

Biasing Hiring and Firing Decisions Against Low-Income Workers

* The proposal would make it considerably more expensive for employers to hire workers from lower-income families than workers from higher-income backgrounds to do the same job. As a result, it would distort hiring decisions. Employers would have strong incentives to tilt hiring toward people who have a spouse with a good income (or have health coverage through a family member), teenagers whose parents make a decent living, and people without children (since the eligibility limit for the subsidies in the new health insurance exchanges will increase with family size). Low-income women with children in one-earner families would be particularly disadvantaged.

While language could be included to try to ban such discriminatory effects, it would be virtually impossible to enforce effectively. It would be extremely difficult to prove in court that an employer has passed over one applicant and hired another because of the health surcharge that employers would face if they hired people receiving health insurance subsidies. Moreover, most low-income job applicants who do not get hired could not afford to hire attorneys to initiate legal proceedings. For the tiny number that might be able to institute proceedings, the legal complaint likely would take months and, more likely, years to adjudicate. In short, the fact that low-income workers would cost an employer up to several thousand dollars more to perform the same job could not easily be overcome.

* This differential treatment of workers based on their family income also would likely influence employer decisions about which of their employees to let go when they trim their workforces to cut costs, such as during a recession. Workers from low-income families would cost the firm significantly more to retain than other workers who are paid the same wage to do the same job.

* Although this clearly is not intended, the proposal likely would have discriminatory racial effects on hiring and firing. As noted, it would discourage the hiring of lower-income people. And since minorities are more likely to have low family incomes than non-minorities, a larger share of prospective minority workers would likely be harmed.

For part 2 of this short series, my plan was to discuss each of the 11 facts I posted about health insurance and the industry that runs it. This, in order to better understand the forces at work which will likely (unfortunately), kill any meaningful reform and will, when the sun sets, leave health insurance companies still in charge of the current system, less some minor and largely meaningless “reforms.” That is, unless you (you who is reading this) call your senators and reps and give them two earfuls about what you want them to do (and not do) about this issue.

In lieu of that, however, I’ve found a brilliant interview that contains nearly all of the points I wanted to make. What makes it even better is the fact those points are all made by a former high-ranking executive for Cigna Healthcare, one of the 7 largest health insurance companies in America. Better still is the fact this executive, Wendell Potter, is the former head of corporate communications for both Humana Healthcare and Cigna. Potter quit his lucrative job at Cigna after realizing how much health care companies and Wall Street were hurting Americans, literally, while putting profits before peoples’ health. Below is an interview he did this month with Guernica magazine, and it is reprinted in its entirety, with my emphasis added at key points throughout.

Read this, and you will have your simple and accurate understanding of the Health Reform issue, coming straight from the insider’s mouth, about why you likely won’t be getting a public option, or any real meaningful health care reform, any time soon.

NOTE: If you prefer a video interview of Wendell Potter, he appeared on PBS’ Bill Moyers Journal a few months ago and said many of the same things. That interview can be found HERE along with several other articles and interviews involving this consummate health care executive whistleblower.

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August 2009
Last Temptation
An interview with Wendell Potter

The former mouthpiece for insurance giant Cigna divulges his role in misleading the public, the emotional day that led to his whistle-blowing, and what should really scare you.

In June 2007, Wendell Potter was head of corporate communications at Cigna, one of the largest health insurance companies in America, when he attended the U.S. premier of Michael Moore’s Sicko. Potter was part of the team charged with discrediting Moore’s film, which advance word said was highly critical of the health insurance industry. Potter “sat quietly in the back and took notes,” but soon realized he had a problem. “When I saw the movie, I’ll be honest: I thought it was a real good documentary. I knew from my own studies of other healthcare systems that it was an accurate portrayal of those systems and how they are able to provide universal coverage.” Yet he was being paid by Cigna to tell people the opposite, that the film was full of lies.

Just a few weeks later, Potter, who is from Tennessee, read in a local paper about a free healthcare expedition being held in Wise County, Virginia. He decided to check it out. Walking through the fairground gates, Potter saw hundreds of people waiting in the rain while physicians attended to patients in animal stalls or on gurneys lying on the rain-soaked pavement. Tents had been pitched across the fairground lawns, creating a scene “like something that could’ve been happening on a battlefield or in a war-torn country.” Tears mixed with the rain to cloud Potter’s vision. “What I thought was: ‘Is this the United States?’ It was so remote from my reality. It just seemed impossible.”

In months and years prior, Potter had grown increasingly skeptical about his job as chief spokesman for Cigna. Though he insists he never intentionally lied to a reporter, he began to spout what he thought were either misleading or less than honest statements. Moreover, his job required him to hype new programs he felt were not in the best interest of patients or the U.S. healthcare system—particularly when it came to high-deductible, or “consumer driven” plans. He came to feel he was on the wrong side of the healthcare debate and would catch himself gazing into a mirror, wondering, “Who is this? How did this happen to me?” After Sicko and Wise County, he resigned.

Since then, Potter has become an outspoken advocate for healthcare reform. Why reform? Because of statistics like these: The U.S. healthcare system is the most expensive in the world, with each person spending more than twice as much on care than people in other industrialized nations. Yet our system ranks 29th in infant mortality, 28th in healthy life expectancy, and 37th overall. In June, Potter testified before the Senate on the devastating effects that Wall Street has on our healthcare system. The overwhelming demand to satisfy investors, Potter told the committee, is what causes insurance companies to “confuse their customers and dump the sick.”

With twenty years of industry experience—he was head of corporate communications with Humana before moving on to Cigna—Potter is an important voice in the healthcare debate. As a former insider, he is uniquely positioned to reveal the industry’s secrets, like its obsession with the medical-loss ratio—the difference between what health insurance companies pay out in claims and what it has left over—which, Potter says, causes otherwise good people in the industry to allow patients to die in order to increase profits. Yet in another sense, Potter is not so unique. We’ve seen them before, former insiders who reap huge financial benefits from an industry or system only to publicly denigrate it years later. If things were so bad, we’re left wondering, why didn’t Potter say something earlier? I recently spoke with Potter by phone.

—Jake Whitney for Guernica

Guernica: During your time in the industry, you created health insurance front groups to mislead the public. Can you give me an example of one of these front groups?

Wendell Potter: When the Clinton plan collapsed [in 1994], there was an effort to pass legislation that would give enrollees in managed care more protections. The industry saw this as anti-managed care legislation, so they established a group called the Health Benefits Coalition. The Health Benefits Coalition, with the funding it got from the insurance industry, killed off the effort to get a Patient’s Bill of Rights passed. A more recent example of a front group I was involved with was trying to blunt the effect of [Michael Moore’s documentary] Sicko. Through a PR firm, the industry created a front group to disseminate misleading information about the healthcare systems featured in Sicko—particularly in Canada, the U.K., and France. This front group was set up specifically to try to counter [Moore’s positive depiction of them].

Guernica: What were your duties with these front groups?

Wendell Potter: To help form messaging and develop strategy with public relations firms. PR firms help create the front groups and serve as the back offices to get the work done. The insurance industry contributes advice and counsel and feedback, but the real work gets done by the PR firms that the insurance industry hires.

Guernica: Was it difficult for you to discredit a movie you felt was accurate?

Wendell Potter: It was very difficult. I was beginning to hate my job. I’d look in the mirror and say, “Who is this? How did this happen to you?” But I had a job to do and was being paid quite a bit, so I soldiered on. I wouldn’t have stayed as long as I did if I didn’t believe that the company I worked for was honest and trying to meet the needs of people. I believed I was making some kind of positive contribution. As I was climbing up the corporate ladder, I got to understand more about how the companies make money and how they are so beholden to Wall Street—both investors and Wall Street analysts—and the things that they do to meet Wall Street’s expectations.

Guernica: You worked in the industry for twenty years. It doesn’t seem like it should have taken so long.

Wendell Potter: You don’t really focus on it or understand the significance of it. I’ll admit I knew that Wall Street looked at the medical-loss ratio. I knew it was an important measure. I didn’t know until, frankly, very recently how important it was. As recently as fifteen years ago, the medical-loss ratio in this country was 95 percent. Since then, there’s been great industry consolidation to the point that now there are seven companies that dominate. They’re all for-profit. During the time that this consolidation, this shift to for-profit occurred, the medical-loss ratio has continued to drop. Now it’s around 80 percent. That means twenty cents of every dollar goes to something other than paying medical claims. Just fifteen years ago, ninety-five cents of every dollar went to paying medical claims. This trend is due to pressure from Wall Street. If a company misses Wall Street’s expectations—if the medical-loss ratio starts to inch up—the company will suffer. I’ve seen companies lose 20 percent of their stock value in one day by disappointing Wall Street with their medical-loss ratio.

Our current reality is far scarier than the fear-mongering. What people have now is a corporate bureaucrat who stands between a person and his or her doctor.

Guernica: So are you saying our healthcare system would be better off if medical insurance companies weren’t publicly traded?

Wendell Potter: We would not have the same problems. Just look at what’s happened since 1993, the beginning of the conversion to for-profit status. The two biggest companies now are Wellpoint and United. In 1993, they were very small. They’ve grown to their size and influence through very aggressive acquisition strategies. In Wellpoint’s case, they bought up many non-profit Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans around the country, which have since converted to for-profit status. United has had a similar strategy. Aetna and Cigna are third and fourth in size, and they, too, have grown largely by acquisition. The fixation that Wall Street has with the medical-loss ratio has created huge problems because investors look at that measure even more than they look at earnings-per-share, which is the primary measure that investors look at in most industries.

Guernica: Shifting to President Obama’s plan: critics often say that Obama’s healthcare plan would be detrimental to care because it would take decisions away from doctors and patients and put them in the hands of a government bureaucrat. Is this a legitimate concern?

Wendell Potter: No. But it is one of those talking points the industry repeats every time we have a debate about reform. They said it in 1993. They say it whenever the industry is under threat of increased government involvement. What I’m telling people is that our current reality is far scarier than the fear-mongering. What people have now is a corporate bureaucrat who stands between a person and his or her doctor. That’s much scarier than the specter of more government. In any event, there is nothing in any healthcare plan that is being proposed that would put a government bureaucrat between a person and his or her doctor.

Guernica: Why is a corporate bureaucrat scarier?

Wendell Potter: Because every person who works for a for-profit company knows that the company has to meet Wall Street’s expectations. Every manager of the company has to pull his or her weight to make sure he and his team are doing all that they can to help the company meet that objective. That includes medical directors. Same with the nurses. They know what the company has to do to meet Wall Street’s expectations and to stay in the good graces of investors.

Guernica: So in other words, corporate bureaucrats have a profit incentive to deny care to people who are enrolled in their plans.

Wendell Potter: Absolutely. It doesn’t have to be stated directly to them that you will be paid a particular bonus if you deny X number of claims; it’s known, and it’s part of the culture.

Guernica: You said you’re familiar with the healthcare systems featured in Sicko and believe them to be superior to the U.S. system.

Wendell Potter: They’re better in many regards. No system is perfect. Every system has flaws and challenges.

Guernica: What about the long wait times we’re warned about, and that government-run healthcare would be one step on the path to socialism? Is there any legitimacy to these claims?

Wendell Potter: No. In fact, we can look at the wait times in this country as more horrific than anything you’ll see in the Canadian system, for example. For elective procedures in many of these countries, yes, you might wait longer for some elective procedure. You might wait longer for an MRI than you would in this country because, on a per capita basis, there are often more machines here than in some of those other systems. But life expectancy in almost every one of these other countries is greater than ours. People do not have to wait long for urgent or necessary care. In fact, in many countries it’s more likely that you would be able to get a same-day appointment with a doctor than here.

Guernica: How do you know?

Wendell Potter: I’ve traveled abroad a lot and I’ve studied them. I’ve been a student of statistics of these other systems, so I do know this, and yes, I have been there.

Guernica: Much was made during the Democratic primaries of health insurance contributions to Democrats. I believe Hillary Clinton raked in a record amount from healthcare companies. Do you think these donations have helped stall legislation?

Wendell Potter: Oh, absolutely. Every step of the way. Let me tell you a story. I am a great admirer of Hillary Clinton’s. I think she’s done terrific things for this country and is a great public servant. But money talks and relationships make a difference. These [insurance] companies contribute more to Democrats than they used to, and they’ve begun hiring lobbyists from the Democratic side of the aisle. They look for the best-connected lobbyists. The CEO of Cigna [H. Edward Hanway] wanted to spend a few minutes with Hillary when she was running for president. One of the lobbyists that Cigna hired was known to be very close to the Clintons, and Hillary Clinton, in particular. Lo and behold, she was able to arrange a meeting for [Hanway] to come to Washington and spend a few minutes with Hillary. I don’t think that [Hanway] necessarily persuaded her to see things from his point of view. She’s not a huge fan of insurance companies. But he was able to get in the door and spend a few minutes with her. And that’s what I’m talking about. It’s the influence insurance companies have been able to buy through hiring people who are well-connected, often former members of Congress or former staff members.

Guernica: Then there are the Blue Dog Democrats and their role in holding up legislation. What’s their motivation?

Wendell Potter: The industry has contributed so heavily to the Republicans over the years that they are pretty much assured that every single Republican in Congress will vote exactly the way they want on any issue pertaining to healthcare. This has not occurred just with campaign contributions. It’s also ideology. The industry has been very determined to carve out its niche on the right side of the political spectrum and, along with the business community, be advocates of a free-market approach to any aspect of our economy—and make sure that there is minimal regulation of any economic sector. So there is a great ideological kinship between the insurance industry and the Republican Party. And this is close to the ideology of the Blue Dog Democrats, who tend to be in border states of the south or where there are more Republicans. Industry has been feeding the Blue Dogs talking points and working overtime to make sure they see things from their philosophical and business perspectives.

Guernica: It was reported late last month [July 29] that a tentative agreement was reached with the Blue Dogs in the House that would omit the “public option.” Do you think that’s a good thing?

Wendell Potter: There have been some compromises that have been made to the Blue Dogs. But Nancy Pelosi said today that the public option is not being sacrificed. I think the leadership in the House and Senate will be fierce defenders of the public option. The Blue Dogs are insurers’ best hope of gutting healthcare reform and removing the public option from legislation. So they are very, very important to the industry, which is why you’re hearing so much about them right now.

Guernica: Do you think the public option is important?

It’s essential. Reform without the public option would be far less meaningful and effective. The public option may not go as far as people would like in some ways, but we need a mechanism that controls costs and makes healthcare more available to citizens. It would go a long way toward keeping the insurance industry more honest, as the president has said.

Guernica: Conservatives’ opposition to the public option is confusing. Shouldn’t conservatives welcome a system that gives more choices to the consumer, which is supposed to be a tenet of conservatism?

Wendell Potter: It doesn’t make a lot of sense. On the one hand, they’re saying that [a public option] would put the private sector at an unfair disadvantage, while they’re also saying that the private sector can operate more efficiently. They are trying to have it both ways. But the reality is that the free-market simply does not work in the healthcare sector as it might in other sectors. A public insurance plan wouldn’t need to have the sales, marketing, and underwriting expenses—and would certainly not need to pay executives exorbitant salaries, and would not need to set aside a significant chunk of every premium dollar to pay shareholders—that private plans do.

Guernica: The [July 30] New York Times had a story that said this: “Obama’s ability to shape the healthcare debate appears to be waning as opponents portray the effort as a government takeover.” Apparently conservative messaging is working.

Wendell Potter: The industry knows through many years of focus group testing what messages scare people. “Government takeover,” is one of those terms.

The reason I started speaking out is I knew the insurance industry would come out with guns blazing to kill reform. I knew the tactics they’d be using and buzzwords they’d be repeating—especially through their shills in Congress, media and business. It’s the same old playbook. I know it because I essentially helped write it. I knew that when the time came, they’d be unleashing that crap. And I knew that it would have the impact it’s having on people and Congress. It’s basically a political contest. At first, it seemed like Obama was just going to walk into office and transformative healthcare legislation would get passed. But I knew it would be a contentious fight—that the industry would be throwing everything conceivable to keep significant reform from happening. Because we’re talking about billions and billions of dollars at stake for those companies and investors. But it’s not a lost cause. Over the next few weeks, we will see one hell of a battle in the districts and over airwaves as proponents and opponents of change spend tons of money on TV and radio advertisements. We’ll be hearing fear mongering like we’ve never heard before, but also be hearing, I hope, effective advertising from the proponents of reform.

Guernica: The Times story really attests to the power of opponents of healthcare reform; don’t most Americans favor reform and some type of universal coverage?

Wendell Potter: They are in favor of it, yes. But the industry knows through many years of focus group testing what messages scare people. And the term you mentioned a few minutes ago, “government takeover,” is one of those terms that they’ve tested and know will scare the bejesus out of people. They know that in the past, people have been so afraid of anything that approaches socialism that you’ll hear that comparison all the time; that if we go with reform, we will have a government takeover of healthcare; that we’ll be on the slippery slope toward socialism.

Guernica: But what about programs like Medicare and the Veteran’s Administration? These are large, extremely effective, government-run programs that have been around a long time, despite the slippery slope rhetoric.

Wendell Potter: The health insurance industry knows this. That is why they’re so careful with language. Medicare is far more popular than almost any private health insurance program in the country. And people in other programs you mentioned are certainly very grateful. But many of them don’t know that it’s a public program.

Guernica: But we’ve heard this exact same talk of socialism decades ago during the battles over Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, etc. And I don’t think very many people want to lose these programs now.

Wendell Potter: Conservatives are so bound to ideology they refuse to take a serious, open-minded look at how for-profit insurance companies have wrecked our healthcare. They don’t want to take the blinders off. What gives me hope is that despite all the lies and all the disinformation that opponents of reform have spread over the years, real reform has nevertheless been enacted. Like the Medicare program during the Johnson years; like the Medicaid program that is such an essential safety net for so many of our people; the Veteran’s program you mentioned. We have plenty of examples of government programs that work great and have done so much for so many billions of people over many years.

Guernica: You’ve mentioned that when you worked for Cigna, you liked your co-workers. You’ve said that you respected your bosses and still do. Have you had contact with them? Are they aware of what side you’re on these days?

Wendell Potter: Oh, there’s no doubt they know what side I’m on. I have not had contact with my former boss or CEO. My former boss was the company’s general counsel [Carol Ann Petren]. She reports to the CEO [Hanway]. I worked and served [Hanway] throughout my career, knew him very well, and like him personally. But he’s one of those people who we just talked about who are committed to privatizing all aspects of the economy. And he’s benefited enormously—earning many millions of dollars in compensation [According to Forbes, Hanway earned over $30 million in 2007]. So has my former boss, also one of the most highly compensated employees [Petren made $2.18 million in 2008]. She is of the same philosophy. I respect their right to have those opinions. But they’re dead wrong.

Guernica: This is an industry that allows people to die so it can increase profits. I would think that it would be difficult to respect people who remain in that industry.

Wendell Potter: When you’re in an executive office in a skyscraper, and you’ve got people bringing your lunch, who take you home in a company-owned limousine with a driver on the company payroll, you get a very skewed understanding of America. You are removed from the reality of how most people live. And the number—46.7 million people without insurance—remains just a number when you’re in that environment. It’s only when you let yourself be around people who are without insurance, who are underinsured, who wait in line… [long pause]

Guernica: Hello?

Wendell Potter: [Choked up] Yes, I’m here.

Guernica: Sounds like this is very emotional for you.

Wendell Potter: Yes. It’s crazy but I still get choked up when I remember the Wise County experience. Talking about it brings back the vision of all those people standing in line in the rain to get care in animal stalls.

Guernica: Did you ever express your concerns with colleagues at Cigna?

Wendell Potter: I talked to friends, but I didn’t muster the courage to [talk to co-workers]. When I decided to quit, I thought I’d just kind of go quietly. I announced it as a retirement, but I could have made a lot more money had I stayed. But I was okay with that. I wasn’t ready to go fishing, but I was ready to take a break. At one point, I thought I might have a chance to change things inside the company and the industry. But I realized very quickly that that was just wishful thinking. The industry is controlled by Wall Street investors. These companies are for-profit. Their first rule is to enhance shareholder value. That is what’s important. If what I said hindered a company’s profitability, I was not going to be listened to, plain and simple.

Guernica: What I’m getting at is this: You’ve become a significant voice in the healthcare debate. But there’s a portion of the public that looks at you skeptically. We’ve seen this before—Scott McClellan is a recent example—someone who is in an industry or system, they make a lot of money, they get out and that’s when they start crying corruption. They write a book and make a little more money. Some are left wondering; “If it was such a bad industry, why didn’t you speak up earlier?” Maybe you could have made a difference in the nineteen nineties.

Wendell Potter: I understand that completely. Looking back, I wish there had been a moment when I could’ve spoken up. On the other hand, I needed to spend time in the industry to gain the perspective I have. I bought into the industry and what it was doing for many years. The company treated me very well for fifteen years, and I didn’t want to be fired; I had to think about the needs of my family. So there was a lot I had to think about as I was sorting through everything. But I can’t help people from thinking that. To those that question my motives, I’d just like to say that I’m doing this because I think it’s the right thing to do. And the timing was something that… I don’t know if it would have been better had I done this earlier. Maybe so; I don’t know. But the way it’s turned out may be just as effective. Right now, the debate is at its peak.

Guernica: Let’s talk about these contentious town hall meetings. What role, if any, does the industry play in causing the disruptive, or what Senator Claire McCaskill called “rude” behavior?

Wendell Potter: One of the big PR firms [for] the insurance industry is APCO Worldwide. They’ve represented the industry for quite a long time. They’re skilled at setting up front groups to spread disinformation to challenge proposals. So they will get talking points into the hands of conservative radio talk show hosts and editorial writers at conservative publications. It all comes from the health insurance industry, but they spread this stuff in such a way that their fingerprints are not directly on it. A guy named Bill Pierce works for APCO; he is an executive there. He used to work as a spokesman for Blue Cross Blue Shield and the Bush Administration. So if you called the number for Healthcare America, you would be connected with Bill Pierce’s office at APCO… The tragic thing about these town hall meetings is how some of these angry citizens are being manipulated. When you see these stories about the meetings and how the participants are so concerned about government takeover of our healthcare system, they use the very words that were fed to them by the health insurance industry, not realizing that that’s where they came from, not realizing that they are unwitting pawns of the industry. Because they hear that stuff from people they believe are credible, like Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck.

Guernica: What are the chances that the industry is actually busing people in to disrupt the meetings?

Wendell Potter: I think indirectly they are. APCO and other PR firms do stuff like that. It would be hard to trace it directly because they go through a lot of trouble to funnel the money in ways that it’s not directly traceable to them. When I say money, of course we’re talking about insurance premiums that people pay, and it’s being used for these purposes.

Guernica: So you’re saying these PR firms could potentially be sticking people on buses and sending them to these town hall meetings in order to disrupt them?

Wendell Potter: Yeah, they know where to go, what kind of organizations to turn to to get that kind of stuff done. There’s no doubt about it. On the other hand, I’m sure there are individuals who show up at these meetings who show up on their own and feel like they need to make sure their voices are heard… But other people there are very orchestrated.

Guernica: When you were with Cigna, did you have any first-hand knowledge of these kinds of tactics?

Wendell Potter: I am very aware of the efforts the industry goes to to bus people to Washington. It’s one of the most sophisticated grass-roots operations you will find in any industry. They have a long list of senior citizens, for example, who are enrolled in the Medicare Advantage plan. Insurance companies will pay for these people to fly to Washington for a day of citizen lobbying. [The senior citizens] will give the impression that they are there speaking on their own, but it’s completely orchestrated by the industry. What these seniors don’t know is that the only way they would lose their Medicare HMO is if the insurance company dumps them because they don’t think they’re profitable enough anymore. That happened back in the nineties, Cigna did it, Aetna did it—all the insurance companies that participated in the Medicare HMO program did it. That’s when Congress reduced the reimbursements a little bit, these big insurance companies dumped seniors by the millions…

Guernica: You’ve said that Cigna purges small businesses whose employees have serious health problems by raising premiums on these businesses until they can’t pay them. Senator Rockefeller recently asked Cigna about this practice, but I believe they denied it.

Wendell Potter: Cigna denied it, but there is evidence in a transcript that Rockefeller has in which the president of Cigna Healthcare uses the exact word: purging. So within the last couple of days, Rockefeller sent them a letter asking them to prove that they don’t purge. Because Cigna is saying they don’t [purge], but there’s evidence that they do. So essentially Rockefeller has caught them in a lie.

Guernica: How do we get other health insurance industry executives to see this from the point of the view of the uninsured?

Wendell Potter: It’s hard. My own process of doing this—it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. To say: “Okay, I’ve got a good job here, I’ve got a family to support, I’ve got a mortgage, I’ve got kids in college; but I’m going to quit my job and do what’s right”—that just doesn’t happen every day. And when you’re in a company, you also are thinking, “I am making a positive difference?” The people who work at these companies by and large are not evil people. But they only see their small part of it; they don’t see the broader picture of what the industry is doing to our healthcare system.

Guernica: If you had a few minutes in a room with some of these executives—maybe some of your former colleagues and friends like Hanway and Petren—who look only at profits. What would you say to them to get them to change their minds?

Wendell Potter: I’d say: “Look at what has happened to our healthcare system and look honestly at the role the insurance industry has played in that. Be honest as you look at this. You know what I’m saying is true. If you were like me, you probably don’t want to think about it. But look at what I’ve been saying, and you’ll recognize what I’m saying as true. You know it’s true. Do the right thing—which in my view is stepping away from the industry and speaking out.” I would also like to say to the critics of healthcare reform: “Open your minds a little bit and take a realistic look at our healthcare system and what has happened to it and the reasons for it. I think you’ll come to the same conclusions that I did.”

Guernica: Knowing people like Hanway, Petren—do you think they will ever come around to seeing things your way?

Wendell Potter: I’m doubtful. I’ve read that people are basically hard-wired to feel the way they do and see the world the way they do. Many people are just born Republican and Conservative. They’re just inclined to believe that the free market is the best thing regardless of in what sense of the economy it is. They have that element; those are the people who control these companies. They might just be hard-wired to see the world like that.
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That about says it all I think. Straight from a high-level insider who participated in it all. If you would like to call your Senators and Representatives, here are the numbers:

List of Senators (Click here)

List of Representatives (Click here)

Stick with me–this 2-part post may be a bit long, but it is likely to be the most honest,accurate, and brief summation of the issue of Health Insurance Reform you are going to read anytime soon. This post is not meant to be an exhaustive foray into every corner and crevice of this issue. It is a high level overview. And it is brutal.

First, let me just get this out of the way: 1) I voted for Obama, 2) I believe he has thus far done an abysmal job based on his campaign rhetoric and promises, 3) This is not about red and blue, democrat and republican, conversative and liberal, and 4) I believe nearly ALL of Congress and nearly ALL of the mainstream media is corrupt and complicit in obfuscating the real discussion that SHOULD be taking place.

With those biases known, let’s start with 10 very telling and related facts about health care in America and the industry running it:

1) The National Coalition on Health Care and the Census Bureau estimates roughly 46 million people are without health insurance, which is about 18% of the population under age 65.

2) Health care costs in this country are simply out of control. They currently represent nearly 17% of our nation’s GDP. As late as 1961, it was only 7%. That means that 1 out of every 6 dollars spent in the US today goes to health care expenses in one form or another. What is even more staggaring is that these costs are expected to consume 1 of every 5 dollars or more in just the next 7 years.

3) There has been a nearly 50% increase in medically-related bankruptcies between 2001 and 2007 alone. And, a whopping 62% of ALL US bankruptcies can be traced back to crushing medical expenses.

4) A 2008 study concluded that the 7 major health insurance companies in America had increased their profits by a combined 170.2% from 2003 through 2007.

5) Health Insurance CEO pay is absolutely insane. Take for example:

• UnitedHealthCare CEO Stephen Helmsley has received unexercised stock options worth nearly $750,000,000 (that’s 3/4ths of a BILLION dollars!)  His 2007 salary was a paltry $13.2 MILLION dollars.
• Cigna CEO Edward Hanway has received over $120,000,000 in compensation over the past 5 years.
• Aetna CEO Ronald Williams has received nearly $195,000,000 in unexercised stock options, plus had  2008 compensation alone that exceeded $24,000,000 dollars.

6)  In just the past 2.5 years, just 9 companies/organizations with a large stake in the future of health care reform have spent OVER HALF A BILLION DOLLARS lobbying Congress ($511 million is the actual figure). As the writers of the study so aptly put it:

“That’s simply a lot of money. And the phrase “Return on Investment” immediately comes to mind. Presumably there is one, or why would they persist? One of the finer things that one can say about someone is that they “Speak Truth to Power.” Speaking money, however,  seems the preferred means of communication.”

7) So far just this year, the pro-business US Chamber of Commerce and the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America has spent nearly $40,000,000 lobbying Congress. That’s just TWO organizations, and only 6 months worth of lobbying!

8. Consider the amounts these key Congressmen have received from health care lobbyists in just the past 7 months:

• Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has brought in the most from the health sector so far this year at $394,400, followed by Senate Finance Committee member Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), who collected $324,350, and former Republican Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), who brought in $266,100. All three senators are up for re-election in 2010.
• House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) was the Republican to bring in the most from the health sector for the year ($199,550) and is on the top recipient list for health insurers ($54,100) and pharmaceuticals ($76,400).
• So far this year health insurers have favored the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), with their cash, giving him $60,500. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) comes in next at $58,000. Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), who has taken the helm of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee in Sen. Edward Kennedy’s absence, has collected more than any other Democrat from health insurers this year at $41,500.
• The three members of these committees to bring in the most from the health sector so far this year include Lincoln ($324,350), Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who collected $257,400, and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who brought in $221,450. All three sit on the Senate Finance Committee.

9) The United States is the only industrialized nation that does not guarantee access to health care as a right of citizenship. 28 industrialized nations have single payer universal health care systems, while 1 (Germany) has a multipayer universal health care system like President Clinton proposed for the United States.

10) The familiar canard that universal health care is socialized medicine and would not be accepted by the public is simply a two-tiered falsehood:

• Single payer universal health care is not socialized medicine. It is health care payment system, not a health care delivery system. Health care providers would be in fee for service practice, and would not be employees of the government, which would be socialized medicine. Single payer health care is not socialized medicine, any more than the public funding of education is socialized education, or the public funding of the defense industry is socialized defense.
• Repeated national and state polls have shown that between 60 and 75% of Americans would like a universal health care system (see The Harris Poll #78, October 20, 2005)

And for you fact nerds who just can’t get enough information, here’s a bonus fact for your noggin to process:

11) Private for profit corporations are the lease [sic] efficient deliverer of health care. They spend between 20 and 30% of premiums on administration and profits. The public sector is the most efficient. Medicare spends 3% on administration.

These are all facts.  You can try to dispute them, but you will be denying reality. Wrap your head around them as you think about why there has been so much opposition to a single-payer universal health care option. That’s what we’ll discuss in my next post.

In the meantime, please feel free to make a comment and contribute to this discussion. I’ll be interested in your feedback.

Yesterday, it was announced that David Barstow of The New York Times won a Pulitzer prize for his investigative journalism surrounding the use by the Pentagon of retired military Generals as propagandists to spin the Iraq War to US citizens. Barstow’s work can be seen HERE and HERE.

These articles came out in April and November of 2008, and are, by all accounts, blockbuster scandals that are so big, they virtually could not be ignored. Yet, that is exactly what every single major US broadcast network has done, including NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, CNN, and MSNBC. Not once has any of these networks run this story on their broadcasts–not one time. Yet, this story, which appeared on the front page of the New York Times (twice!), did spark a Congressional investigation, as well as huge, widespread coverage from independent media sources, including Salon.com, HuffingtonPost.com, MotherJones.com, and scores of other respected and well-read news media outlets.

So why have they ignored it, you ask?

Simple. The major news networks used these retired generals as analysts over and over and OVER again, totaling some 4,500 appearances in all between late 2002 up to the present. The networks presented them as experts (and still do) offering their professional, “independent” opinions based solely on their knowledge and career military experience. Yet never, not even one time, has any of the major news networks revealed that nearly all of these generals:

• Were extensively and repeatedly briefed by the Pentagon and given detailed instructions on how to present the events of the Iraq War, and

• Most of these generals had lucrative financial or employment ties to many defense contractors, with investments and/or consulting fees reaching into the millions of dollars, creating a painfully obvious conflict of interest that should have been brought to the viewers’ attention so they could properly consider what was being said in light of those ties.

So it was no surprise that, when announcing the Pulitzer prize winners yesterday and last night on their evening news programs, not a single anchor mentioned Barstow’s achievements, once again completely refusing to acknowledge this huge scandal which all but destroys the networks’ credibility in terms of reporting news objectively and honestly.

Glenn Greenwald, one of the journalists who’ve been out front on this story since the beginning had this to say about this latest instance of the major media completely refusing to acknowledge this story:

By whom were these “ties to companies” undisclosed and for whom did these deeply conflicted retired generals pose as “analysts”? ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN and Fox — the very companies that have simply suppressed the story from their viewers. They kept completely silent about Barstow’s story even though it sparked Congressional inquiries, vehement objections from the then-leading Democratic presidential candidates, and allegations that the Pentagon program violated legal prohibitions on domestic propaganda programs. The Pentagon’s secret collaboration with these “independent analysts” shaped multiple news stories from each of these outlets on a variety of critical topics. Most amazingly, many of them continue to employ as so-called “independent analysts” the very retired generals at the heart of Barstow’s story, yet still refuse to inform their viewers about any part of this story.

And even now that Barstow yesterday won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting — one of the most prestigious awards any news story can win — these revelations still may not be uttered on television, tragically dashing the hope expressed yesterday (rhetorically, I presume) by Media Matters’ Jamison Foser that “maybe now that the story has won a Pulitzer for Barstow, they’ll pay attention.” Instead, it was Atrios’ prediction that was decisively confirmed: “I don’t think a Pulitzer will be enough to give the military analyst story more attention.” Here is what Brian Williams said last night on his NBC News broadcast in reporting on the prestigious awards:

“The Pulitzer Prizes for journalism and the arts were awarded today. The New York Times led the way with five, including awards for breaking news and international reporting. Las Vegas Sun won for the public service category for its reporting on construction worker deaths in that city. Best commentary went to Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post, who of course was an on-air commentator for us on MSNBC all through the election season and continues to be. And the award for best biography went to John Meacham, the editor of Newsweek magazine, for his book “American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House.”

No mention that among the five NYT prizes was one for investigative reporting. Williams did manage to promote the fact that one of the award winners was an MSNBC contributor, but sadly did not find the time to inform his viewers that NBC News’ war reporting and one of Williams’ still-featured premiere “independent analysts,” Gen. Barry McCaffrey, was and continues to be at the heart of the scandal for which Barstow won the Pulitzer. Williams’ refusal to inform his readers about this now-Pulitzer-winning story is particularly notable given his direct personal involvement in the secret, joint attempts by NBC and McCaffrey to contain P.R. damage to NBC from Barstow’s story, compounded by the fact that NBC was on notice of these multiple conflicts as early as April, 2003, when The Nation first reported on them.

Identically, CNN ran an 898-word story on the various Pulitzer winners — describing virtually every winner — but was simply unable to find any space even to mention David Barstow’s name, let alone inform their readers that he won the Prize for uncovering core corruption at the heart of CNN’s coverage of the Iraq War and other military-related matters. No other television news outlet implicated by Barstow’s story mentioned his award, at least as far as I can tell.

The outright refusal of any of these “news organizations” even to mention what Barstow uncovered about the Pentagon’s propaganda program and the way it infected their coverage is one of the most illuminating events revealing how they operate. So transparently corrupt and journalistically disgraceful is their blackout of this story that even Howard Kurtz and Politico — that’s Howard Kurtz and Politico — lambasted them for this concealment. Meaningful criticisms of media stars from media critic (and CNN star) Howie Kurtz is about as rare as prosecutions for politically powerful lawbreakers in America, yet this is what he said about the television media’s suppression of Barstow’s story: “their coverage of this important issue has been pathetic.”

Has there ever been another Pulitzer-Prize-winning story for investigative reporting never to be mentioned on major television — let alone one that was twice featured as the lead story on the front page of The New York Times? To pose the question is to answer it.

For more information on this story, you can find much more analysis from Greenwald HERE HERE and HERE as well as some of the latest comments from Media Matters HERE.

It is all very fascinating reading and very well documented. That’s your Mainstream Media at work. Looking out for you, Joe Q. Citizen. That’s “fair and balanced.”  Uhh, not.

If any of you would like to defend the MSM in this case, I would enjoy hearing your arguments. Personally, I find this repulsive, inexcusable, and entirely destructive on many different levels.

“There are laws to protect the freedom of the press’s speech, but none that are worth anything to protect the people from the press”–Mark Twain

A central tenet of this blog is to show as many people as possible just how co-opted, corrupt, and propagandistic is our national press corps. And really, given the amount of evidence that is readily available, that in itself is not a difficult task. For far too long, the “mainstream media” has been little more than a tool used by the giant corporations that own them and the politicians they all too clearly pay for to maintain the status quo, as well as a willing, and largely unquestioning mouthpiece for whatever the federal government says and does. The toll this is taking on this country is staggering, especially in terms of citizen freedoms, the ability for us as a nation to honestly discuss the nation’s biggest problems and priorities, and to achieve anything remotely considered social and economic equality. It is also something that politicians, media conglomerates, and establishment media stars are simply unwilling to ever talk about honestly. After all, it is not in their interests to do so.

But within the “independent media” (a term which should be clearly redundant, but in today’s world clearly isn’t), there are some truly shining stars. Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com and Amy Goodman of DemocracyNow.org are two such journalists. Both of them recently received the Park Center for Independent Media’s first annual Izzy Awards, an award named after the fiercely independent and prolific journalist Izzy Stone.

Below is the acceptance speech of Glenn Greenwald in two parts. It’s about 30 minutes total, and is well worth watching. He does an excellent job of delineating the differences between propaganda and journalism, as well as defining the similarities and differences between bloggers and journalists. He includes several excellent examples of the type of sycophantic relationship that exists between today’s mainstream “journalists” and those they cover, and the resultant problems that creates.

Pay particular attention to the part of the discussion where he talks about MSNBC star journalist Ashleigh Banfield and what happened to her career after she gave a revealing speech at Kansas State University critical of the way in which the Iraq War was being covered by the mainstream media. Her career was essentially destroyed the moment she “got out of line” and actually told the truth in a public venue about how the media and its relationship with the government really works. Here is one of the key quotes from her speech:

There is another whole phenomenon that’s come about from this war. Many talk about it as the Fox effect, the Fox news effect. I know everyone of you has watched it. It’s not a dirty little secret. A lot of people describe Fox as having streamers and banners coming out of the television as you’re watching it cover a war. But the Fox effect is very concerning to me.

I’m a journalist and I like to be able to tell the story as I see it, and I hate it when someone tells me I’m one-sided. It’s the worst I can hear. Fox has taken so many viewers away from CNN and MSNBC because of their agenda and because of their targeting the market of cable news viewership, that I’m afraid there’s not a really big place in cable for news. Cable is for entertainment, as it’s turning out, but not news.

I’m hoping that I will have a future in news in cable, but not the way some cable news operators wrap themselves in the American flag and patriotism and go after a certain target demographic, which is very lucrative. You can already see the effects, you can already see the big hires on other networks, right wing hires to chase after this effect, and you can already see that flag waving in the corners of those cable news stations where they have exciting American music to go along with their war coverage.

Well, all of this has to do with what you’ve seen on Fox and its successes. So I do urge you to be very discerning as you continue to watch the development of cable news, and it is changing like lightning. Be very discerning because it behooves you like it never did before to watch with a grain of salt and to choose responsibly, and to demand what you should know.

You can find the full text of her speech HERE

In addition, I HIGHLY recommend you check out Glenn’s blog using the link on the right side of this page. Also, Amy Goodman is such an excellent journalist. Her website, DemocracyNow.org is one of the few places on the net where you will truly get news that is “fair and balanced.” Her Izzy award is also much deserved.

Unfortunately, for some reason I couldn’t post the videos directly here, but you can see them all in one place. Just go here to enjoy them. And don’t be shy leaving me your thoughts and comments, or passing this blog post on to others who might find it worthwhile reading.

I will be the first to admit–my preconceived notions of my local tea party tax protest were wrong–or at least, insofar as the dozen or so intelligent, informed citizens I interviewed as part of HuffPo’s citizen journalism team.

What I expected was a bunch of whipped-up, frenzied “Dittoheads” and “Hannity Hounds” screaming that everything was Obama’s fault, and that he’s a fascist, socialist, and Dictator-In-Chief. I expected them to have wiped clean from their memories all of the insane spending, criminal deregulation, and malfeasance of the Bush years. And don’t get me wrong, there were those in attendance carrying such signs and generally representing the Limbaugh/O’Reilly/Hannity/Beck lunatic fringe. But that wasn’t the majority of what I saw and heard. Not even close.

With about 2500 angry citizens filling the sun-drenched, grassy knoll beneath the nation’s only memorial to our World War 1 veterens, I found the majority of them to be intelligent, well-informed, and above all fed up at ALL of their Congress critters and their irresponsible, financially bankrupt ways. Many in the crowd held signs calling for term limits, a new fair tax system, and (more than anything else) an end to the spendthrift ways of our drunk-on-power representatives. As you can see in my YouTube video of the event, many held very Libertarian points of view. I heard repeatedly that they want to put a stop to what they see as unparalleled government interference, waste, and fiscal irresponsibility that is going to saddle multiple future generations with a crushing debt burden and bloated, ineffective, and invasive government.

I asked several people who they most blamed for the current financial crisis, and none of them felt it was primarily one party or the other. As soon as someone wanted to blame the Obamas, Geithners, and Bernankes, they quickly conceded that the Bush administration was just as responsible for this mess, if not more so. Unlike the hyper-polarization you so often hear on Fox News and right-wing radio, these Kansas City citizens saw it in a much more balanced, realistic way.

And that gave me hope. Hope that we are not a nation of Michael Savages, Sean Hannitys, and Rush Limbaughs. Hope that people really do see through the chicanery and boondoggles being foisted upon us equally by BOTH parties. Hope that we are not all as dumb and disengaged as the right-wing fear machine would like us to be.

But herein lies the rub. While those I interviewed seemed to understand some of the more subtle context of the problems we face, I didn’t find many who knew what kinds of practical solutions we as citizens could employ to fix those problems. Term limits, new tax laws, and drastic cuts in spending are all great answers, but with a system so rigged against those kinds of sweeping changes, what are we as citizens to do?

Whatever the answers, one thing is clear: those solutions must be done together, must start at the ground level, and must be suggested with an absolutely overwhelming force and commitment. HuffPo readers already know all this. I just hope we’re able to convince that vast “silent majority” that the time for silence and grumbling under our collective breath is over. The solvency of our nation and our childrens’ futures depend on it.

UPDATE:

Here is a short video of our KC Tea Party experience. Special thanks to Vince Vaughan for manning the camera and his willingness to forego sleep in an effort to edit this thing and get it up so quickly.

All of you have seen and heard endless reports and news about the current financial crisis. Most of it lately has been about the relatively insignificant but maddening AIG bonuses. But—do you really know what is going on? Do you have any real idea just how huge this problem is, and how it is going to affect you personally and permanently in the near future? Believe me, this crisis is a game changer the likes of which this country has never EVER seen. And boy oh boy are you (and me) gonna pay.

Well, now that I’ve just told you you’re in for the ass-phucking of a lifetime, you might decide you want to learn what has really happened. I have the fix: Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone Magazine is one of the best journalists in the country, and he has researched, written, and explained the issue incredibly well, and in an easy to understand way. I HIGHLY recommend reading this article. It makes this whole crisis very easy to understand, even for us non-finance-degreed rubes.

The above article and discussion is a primer for today’s main entre–my assertion that the US is, for all practical purposes, no longer a representative democracy. With this latest financial crisis, the gov’t and those on Wall St. who’ve perpetrated the raping of the US Treasury appear to be in the final stages of implementing what can be called nothing less than a permanent political/corporate Oligarchy. In other words–Extreme gov’t control of virtually every significant financial lever of the economy, brought to you by vast campaign contributions and highly paid lobbying efforts of the financial and monied elite who’ve destroyed the existing system and extracted vast amounts of ill-gotten wealth from it.

Sound crazy you say? Let’s look at some definitions of those terms and see how things happening today as reported by top experts (see Update 2) fit into the formula.

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Oligarchy (Greek Ὀλιγαρχία, Oligarkhía) is a form of government where power effectively rests with a small elite segment of society distinguished by royalty, wealth, family, military influence or religious hegemony. The word oligarchy is from the Greek words for “few” (ὀλίγος olígos) and “rule” (ἀρχή arkhē). Such states are often controlled by politically powerful families whose children are heavily conditioned and mentored to be heirs of the power of the oligarchy. Fact|date=February 2009}} Oligarchies have been tyrannical throughout history, being completely reliant on public servitude to exist. Although Aristotle pioneered the use of the term as a synonym for rule by the rich, for which the exact term is plutocracy, oligarchy is not always a rule by wealth, as oligarchs can simply be a privileged group. Some city-states from Ancient Greece were oligarchies.

The concept of an “oligarchic democracy” is one which some scholars attribute to Ancient Rome and the United States. Marxist Ellen Meiksins Wood writes, that it “conveys a truth about U.S. politics every bit as telling as its application to ancient Rome. It is no accident that the Founding Fathers of the U.S. Republic looked to Roman models for inspiration in making the Federalist case, adopting Roman names as pseudonyms and conceiving of themselves as latterday Catos, forming a natural aristocracy of republican virtue. (Americans today still have a representative body called the Senate, and their republic is still watched over by the Roman eagle, albeit in its American form.) Faced with the distasteful specter of democracy, they sought ways to redefine that unpalatable concept to accommodate aristocratic rule, producing a hybrid, “representative democracy,” which was clearly meant to achieve an effect similar to the ancient Roman idea of the “mixed constitution,” in fact, an “oligarchic ‘democracy.”‘[1] However, the constitution and state laws have since been modified, with the removal of the original property requirements for voting, as well as giving the vote to women and blacks.[2]

A number of critics argue that the United States political system is, itself, an oligarchic structure. Third party candidates stand little chance of election to national office, due to the enormous monetary capital needed to purchase advertising time and to make other key connections in order to gain sufficient attention from the electorate. Since large donors fuel national political races, expecting due compensation in return for funding the winners’ campaigns, it is difficult to distinguish between the current situation and societies most commonly recognized as oligarchies. It is, many feel, a return to aristocratic rule, in which the common people have little control over their political fate; feelings of being “sold out” frequently lead to apathy, now recognized as the most common problem in American politics.

Some authors, such as Zulma Riley, Keith Riley, Mathew Marquess, and Robert Michels, believe that any political system eventually evolves into an oligarchy. This theory is called the “iron law of oligarchy”. According to this school of thought, modern democracies should be considered as elected oligarchies. In these systems, actual differences between viable political rivals are small, the oligarchic elite impose strict limits on what constitutes an ‘acceptable’ and ‘respectable’ political position, and politicians’ careers depend heavily on unelected economic and media elites.

source article here

Any of this sound familiar? The real question is: What should be done about it? What do you think?

Update:

I SO shouldn’t do this, because the Rolling Stone article is an absolute must read, but if you want a highly condensed version of that article, Mark Fiore has an excellent video cartoon that boils it down to its barest elements, plus he always uses great cartooning and sound effects. It’s called: “Leverage Me Tender”

Update 2:

If you have the stomach for it, here is what the former Chief Economist for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and current MIT professor Simon Johnson is saying about this crisis:

Typically, these countries are in a desperate economic situation for one simple reason—the powerful elites within them overreached in good times and took too many risks. Emerging-market governments and their private-sector allies commonly form a tight-knit—and, most of the time, genteel—oligarchy, running the country rather like a profit-seeking company in which they are the controlling shareholders. When a country like Indonesia or South Korea or Russia grows, so do the ambitions of its captains of industry. As masters of their mini-universe, these people make some investments that clearly benefit the broader economy, but they also start making bigger and riskier bets. They reckon—correctly, in most cases—that their political connections will allow them to push onto the government any substantial problems that arise. . . .

The downward spiral that follows is remarkably steep. Enormous companies teeter on the brink of default, and the local banks that have lent to them collapse. Yesterday’s “public-private partnerships” are relabeled “crony capitalism.” . . . The government, in its race to stop the bleeding, will typically need to wipe out some of the national champions—now hemorrhaging cash—and usually restructure a banking system that’s gone badly out of balance. It will, in other words, need to squeeze at least some of its oligarchs.

Squeezing the oligarchs, though, is seldom the strategy of choice among emerging-market governments. Quite the contrary: at the outset of the crisis, the oligarchs are usually among the first to get extra help from the government, such as preferential access to foreign currency, or maybe a nice tax break, or—here’s a classic Kremlin bailout technique—the assumption of private debt obligations by the government. Under duress, generosity toward old friends takes many innovative forms. Meanwhile, needing to squeeze someone, most emerging-market governments look first to ordinary working folk—at least until the riots grow too large. . . .

In its depth and suddenness, the U.S. economic and financial crisis is shockingly reminiscent of moments we have recently seen in emerging markets (and only in emerging markets): South Korea (1997), Malaysia (1998), Russia and Argentina (time and again). . . .But there’s a deeper and more disturbing similarity: elite business interests—financiers, in the case of the U.S.—played a central role in creating the crisis, making ever-larger gambles, with the implicit backing of the government, until the inevitable collapse. More alarming, they are now using their influence to prevent precisely the sorts of reforms that are needed, and fast, to pull the economy out of its nosedive. The government seems helpless, or unwilling, to act against them.

One thing is for certain: you will NOT see Simon Johnson being interviewed and talking this way on ANY mainstream media program. Not in a million years. To acknowledge the truth about what is being done to our economy and to YOU, the wayward serf of the monied elite, is simply not permitted. However, we sure as HELL are going to have endless hours and hours and hours and hours of coverage of OctoMom, the Caylee Anthony case, and the latest American Idol guffaws. In the words of Sarah “It’s the media’s fault we lost” Palin, “You Betcha!”

I will be the first to admit: I am not a technology junkie. Hell, I had to be badgered repeatedly to start this blog (which, by the view statistics and comment section, is looking more and more like a waste of time). I don’t have a DVR, I don’t have satellite radio or an I-phone, or even a data plan on the phone I do have. My home stereo system is circa 1992. But I do use the forms of technology which give me the most bang for my buck, and I use them extensively.

My other observation pertinent to this topic is the sound bite nature our culture has quickly become dominated by. If you can’t say it in 30 seconds or less, it isn’t worth saying, or so it would seem. I’ve observed this in some of my friends even. No time for an in-depth discussion of a complex topic. Too boring, too time-consuming, too not important to what happens to me in the next 30 minutes. It is, in my opinion, one of the prime reasons why we as Americans as a whole, do not comprehend nearly well enough the trouble this country is in economically and socio-economically, and the price we are going to pay for what has happened in the years ahead.

And then comes Twitter–the newest techno-gobbledygook to take the world by storm. For those who don’t know what Twitter is, it is essentially a social networking tool that allows you to blast out short messages to tell everyone on your list of followers what you’re doing at a given moment….all in 140 characters or less.

Aside from even a modestly funny twitter feed like that of actor Christopher Walkin, which may be fine for some needed comic relief, I can’t think of anything more useless than knowing what me, my friends, or my family are doing at any given moment in our absolutely regular and almost always unexciting lives.

“Some old blue hair is driving slow in the passing lane.”

“I’m farting on my brother’s face.”

“I just gagged after sticking a foot-long Slim Jim down my throat. I hate it when I do that.”

Seriously….dawwwwg…..no one freaking cares. It’s bad enough that people like me are narcissistic enough to have their own blogs on which to bloviate about any number of useless topics that virtually no one else cares about. But at least with a blog, you can flesh out an argument, have a discussion with commenters, or call for some kind of important change. Not so with Twitter. Twitter is just a wasteland of meandering thoughts of the moment, or useless updates about stuff no one actually cares much about, if at all. If I want that in my life I have stuff like text messaging, which seems to be the preferred method of instant communication amongst our youth anyway. Or instant messaging. Or email. Or that complete relic from the neo-Jurassic: the phone call. Because truly, is there anything going on in your life that you either can’t wait to tell someone until later, or do it via one of the commonly available other methods of communication currently in widespread use?

Oh yes, I am ever the “fuddy duddy” now aren’t I. Because I don’t embrace a new tech tool simply because it’s new, and that can do what any number of other tools can already do, and that has little or no real use in anyone’s world except for Rick Sanchez, the CNN anchor who has latched on to Twitter in order to try and save his incredibly inane and boring mid-afternoon timeslot on CNN. Rick is a Twitter user alright. Actually, Rick Sanchez is just a twit.

Probably the best and funniest summary of twitter can be seen in this super snarky but right-on YouTube video:

So what do you think of Twitter? Is it a mega-useful tool of the engaged, or just another useless toy in the sea of gadgety guffaws? Let me know what you think.

Update:

In addition to the problems of having fake Twitterers like the scoundrel or scoundrels representing Keith Olbermann (when Keith in fact does NOT Twitter), there is the danger of some kind of caste system taking root as people race to find ways to build up their follower lists in order to increase their perception of relevance amongst those they wish to court.

Here is CNET’s views of Twitter, both against it and for it. Frankly, even the “for it” column sounds like an “against it” column to me.

Update 2:

As if to prove my point, here is a fresh-out-of-the-oven article about twitterers’ reactions to the moment of tension between CNN’s Ed Henry and President Obama during last night’s nationally televised press conference.

“Obama slams CNN dufus…”

“Daaaamn CNN’s Ed Henry got roasted!”

“CNN/Ed Henry you got spanked. Deal with it.”

Scintillating stuff……Vital……..Interesting……

Can I please get back the 2 minutes I wasted reading those tweets….I coulda been processing my just-eaten sausage mcmuffin instead.

Regardless of your political views, it is exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to abhor the recent comments reiterated by Rush Limbaugh:  “I hope Obama fails.” That our incredibly propagandistic, establishment-protecting MSM is constantly playing the comments back on an endless loop the past couple of days is a topic for another post.  But the fact is, Rush is proud of his statement, which he first made fully 4 days before Obama was even inaugurated.  He is shamelessly milking it for all it’s worth to garner ratings and attention for himself and his show.

Comments like these put Limbaugh squarely in the same camp with pre-election idiotic comments by Sarah “Palling around with terrorists” Palin or that bizarre lady who probably smells like mothballs that called Obama an Arab.  And that is exactly the kind of non-thinking, reaction-inducing bilge this country does not need right now.

There isn’t time today for me to break down the arguments behind what Limbaugh is saying, except to say they are incredibly specious and not backed up by any rigorous semblance of facts.  But there is little doubt he is doing it in part for the attention it garners.  As he says himself:

“The Administration is enabling me,” he wrote in an email to POLITICO. “They are expanding my profile, expanding my audience and expanding my influence. An ever larger number of people are now being exposed to the antidote to Obamaism: conservatism, as articulated by me. An ever larger number of people are now exposed to substantive warnings, analysis and criticism of Obama’s policies and intentions, a ‘story’ I own because the [mainstream media] is largely the Obama Press Office.”

Tell me, Rush, is this the same “conservatism” that led to the doubling of our National Debt under Bush, a figure that even Obama’s own chief of staff, Rahm Immanuel, underestimated by 20% in a recent interview?  Is this the conservatism that led us into a war with a country who had nothing to do with 9/11, and which now has cost us more than 4,000 American lives, and over TWO TRILLION DOLLARS and still growing?  Is that the kind of conservatism you’re talking about, Loudmouth?

Is there anyone in America who is more flagrantly self-serving, intellectually dishonest, or who shows less interest in the good of the country’s well-being than him?  I think it would be difficult to argue so, and not because “I heart Obama” or I wish Limbaugh would get ahold of some bad Dominican Viagra.  It’s just bad form, in every possible sense of the word.

This country has been financially devastated over the past 8 years by poor (and I would argue criminal) economic policy, a total lack of regulation, and corporate greed run amok.  The unemployment rate is as high as it’s been in decades, 20% of homes are worth less than what is owed on them, and we are now TRILLIONS more in debt than we were at the start of this decade.  Our country’s trade imbalance worsens by the day thanks to destructive and worthless free trade policies that ship jobs overseas, our banking system and automotive industry are teetering on collapse, and we are now regarded as a torturing, war-mongering country by most of the world.

Yet, Rush Limbaugh “hopes Obama fails.”

By doing so, Rush hopes America fails.  Rush hopes that more people lose their homes.  Rush hopes that someone else in your family loses his or her job.  Rush hopes that healthcare does not become more affordable, or that more people who don’t have coverage get it in the near future.  Rush hopes that large banking institutions fail (as deserving as it may sound, it is not a good idea), and that more large, nationwide companies like Circuit City go out of business.  Rush hopes that small businesses can’t afford to get loans to keep their companies (and their employees) going.  And Rush hopes that no one who is responsible for the situation we find ourselves in is held to account for what they’ve done.

Is that you?  Do you wish for those things?  Does Rush Limbaugh represent your views on this?

Let’s be real:  Obama is not going to be able to solve all of our problems, but he is going to do the best he can to fix as many of these issues that were left on his desk by the previous administration as he can through his leadership of those who work for him.  For sure, Obama was left with an incredibly long list of extremely serious problems that he did not create.  He will make mistakes, and yes, he should be held accountable when that happens, precisely unlike our previous president.  But given the boggling amount of inept leadership, single-mindedly partisan politics, and outright malfeasance of the previous 8 years, (all of which Rush Limbaugh personally cheered on at the very top of his overweight, oxycontin-spiked lungs), is there any possible way an even minimally patriotic citizen of this country could wish Obama to fail?  At this (or any other) critical time?

Rush Limbaugh:  The Least Patriotic Person in America.