Former insurance executive Wendell Potter tells Greg Palast, in an exclusive interview for Truthout.org, that “the system’s rigged” to kill off so-called “health cooperatives.” …Earlier today, Potter told Truthout.org that the Senator’s plan is “disingenuous or naive,” because, in most states, “the system’s rigged” to lock up all patients under one for-profit monopoly. While a publicly-funded insurer might succeed in forcing insurers to cut premium charges, Snowe’s cooperatives “don’t stand a snowball’s chance” of competing against the for-profit monopolies.
Potter, once Vice-President of CIGNA, told Truthout.org that, “The insurance industry, if it were honest” it would admit that it “loves” the Senate Finance Committee’s version of the health care legislation as the bill provides nearly half a trillion dollars ($461 billion) in subsidy payments directly from the Treasury to insurance companies.
So here’s your choice patients: sign up with a private monopoly or sign up with a government monopoly. Neither sounds all that appealing to me.