You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

Ex-Cigna Exec: Insurance Companies “Dump the Sick”

HeadlineJun 25, 2009

The findings were released as the Senate Commerce Committee heard testimony from an insurance executive who’s now criticizing his former industry. The executive, Wendell Potter, was most recently a public relations executive for the insurer Cigna until last year. In his testimony, Potter said the industry has deliberately misled consumers with confusing paperwork to deter them from trying to recoup unwarranted payments. Potter said, “[T]hey confuse their customers and dump the sick, all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors.” Potter also said insurers are using what he called “fear tactics” to derail proposals for a public health plan out of fear of losing profits.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top