An Epiphany

Today's NYT column by Nicholas Kristof and an earlier Bill Moyer's interview highlights Wendell Potter, formerly head of corporate communications for two health insurance companies and the man who helped craft the industries' strategy to block health care reform.

One rainy day Mr. Potter saw the light and quit.

From the New York Times...

He rode in limousines to confabs to concoct messaging to scare the public about reform. But in his heart, he began to have doubts as the business model for insurance evolved in recent years from spreading risk to dumping the risky.

Then in 2007 Mr. Potter attended a premiere of “Sicko,” Michael Moore’s excoriating film about the American health care system. Mr. Potter was taking notes so that he could prepare a propaganda counterblast — but he found himself agreeing with a great deal of the film.

A month later, Mr. Potter was back home in Tennessee, visiting his parents, and dropped in on a three-day charity program at a county fairgrounds to provide medical care for patients who could not afford doctors. Long lines of people were waiting in the rain, and patients were being examined and treated in public in stalls intended for livestock.

“It was a life-changing event to witness that,” he remembered.

The whole column is worth a read, particularly the part about the methods that insurance companies use to keep expenses aka claims down.