{"id":247,"date":"2009-07-11T23:40:04","date_gmt":"2009-07-11T14:40:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joel.ingulsrud.net\/blog\/?p=247"},"modified":"2009-07-11T23:42:45","modified_gmt":"2009-07-11T14:42:45","slug":"cigna-exec-explains-why-for-profit-health-insurance-is-so-scared-of-the-public-option","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joel.ingulsrud.net\/blog\/2009\/07\/11\/cigna-exec-explains-why-for-profit-health-insurance-is-so-scared-of-the-public-option","title":{"rendered":"CIGNA exec on why the health insurance industry is so scared of the &#8220;public option.&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pbs.org\/moyers\/journal\/07102009\/watch2.html\">Bill Moyers Journal interview of former CIGNA public relations executive<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; font-size: 11px;\"><strong>BILL MOYERS:<\/strong> Why is public insurance, a public option, so fiercely opposed by the industry?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>WENDELL POTTER:<\/strong> The industry doesn&#8217;t want to have any competitor. In fact, over the course of the last few years, has been shrinking the number of competitors through a lot of acquisitions and mergers. So first of all, they don&#8217;t want any more competition period. They certainly don&#8217;t want it from a government plan that might be operating more efficiently than they are, that they operate. The Medicare program that we have here is a government-run program that has administrative expenses that are like three percent or so.<\/p>\n<p><strong>BILL MOYERS:<\/strong> Compared to the industry&#8217;s&#8211;<\/p>\n<p><strong>WENDELL POTTER:<\/strong> They spend about 20 cents of every premium dollar on overhead, which is administrative expense or profit. So they don&#8217;t want to compete against a more efficient competitor.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Even <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/1603582282\/kidsermonscom\">Howard Dean doesn&#8217;t believe<\/a> a single payer system like the successful ones in Canada, Great Britain and here in Japan is politically feasible, but we should at the very least insist congress legislates a public option. Contact your <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usa.gov\/Contact\/Elected.shtml\">congress-critter<\/a>, write a letter to your local paper, etc. as a counter to the insurance industry&#8217;s massive lobbying effort.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bill Moyers Journal interview of former CIGNA public relations executive: BILL MOYERS: Why is public insurance, a public option, so fiercely opposed by the industry? WENDELL POTTER: The industry doesn&#8217;t want to have any competitor. In fact, over the course of the last few years, has been shrinking the number of competitors through a lot [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,21],"tags":[79],"class_list":["post-247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","category-politics","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joel.ingulsrud.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joel.ingulsrud.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joel.ingulsrud.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joel.ingulsrud.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joel.ingulsrud.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/joel.ingulsrud.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":250,"href":"https:\/\/joel.ingulsrud.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247\/revisions\/250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joel.ingulsrud.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joel.ingulsrud.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joel.ingulsrud.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}