Deadly Spin

Deadly Spin

An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR Is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans

By Wendell Potter

"My name is Wendell Potter, and for twenty years I worked as a senior executive at health insurance companies. I saw how they confuse their customers and dump the sick-all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors."-Senate testimony, June 24, 2009

Wendell Potter is the insurance industry's worst nightmare.

In June 2009, Wendell Potter made national headlines with his scorching testimony before the Senate panel on health care reform. This former senior VP of CIGNA explained how health insurers make promises they have no intention of keeping, how they flout regulations designed to protect consumers, and how they skew political debate with multibillion-dollar PR campaigns designed to spread disinformation.

Potter had walked away from a six-figure salary and two decades as an insurance executive because he could no longer abide the routine practices of an industry where the needs of sick and suffering Americans take a backseat to the bottom line. The last straw: when he visited a rural health clinic and saw hundreds of people standing in line in the rain to receive treatment in stalls built for livestock.

In Deadly Spin, Potter takes readers behind the scenes to show how a huge chunk of our absurd healthcare spending actually bankrolls a propaganda campaign and lobbying effort focused on protecting one thing: profits. Whatever the fate of the current health care legislation, it makes no attempt to change that fundamental problem.

Potter shows how relentless PR assaults play an insidious role in our political process anywhere that corporate profits are at stake-from climate change to defense policy. Deadly Spin tells us why-and how-we must fight back.

Advance Reviews for Deadly Spin:

"Wendell Potter is a straight shooter -- and he hits the bulls-eye here with an expose of corporate power that reveals why real health care reform didn't happen, can't happen, and won't happen until that power is contained." —Bill Moyers

"Wendell Potter transformed the national debate over health care when he stood up and told the truth about the health insurance industry. By breaking the insurance industry’s code of silence and explaining to his fellow Americans how health insurance companies put profits ahead of patient care, Wendell showed extraordinary courage. The compelling story of Wendell’s conversion from a health care executive to an outspoken reform advocate is essential reading for anyone trying to understand the American health care system."—Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia

"The recently passed health care bill did many good things, including make health insurance available to more Americans and restrain some of the most egregious practices of the health insurance industry. It also forced more people to become customers of that industry. What the bill did not do is reform the healthcare system. Wendell Potter explains why not, and what went wrong.”—Howard Dean

Reviews/Media for Deadly Spin:

The Washington Post has posted a piece by Wendell on its “Political Bookworm” . blog.

The January 10/17, 2011 issue of The Nation includes Wendell Potter on their Progressive Honor Roll of 2010! MOST VALUABLE AUTHOR: Wendell Potter: Wendell Potter, former vice president of corporate communications with insurance giant CIGNA, now a fellow with the spin-busting Center for Media and Democracy, used media appearances and testimony before Congressional committees to expose the dark manipulations of fact that insurance firms use to preserve for-profit healthcare. Then he put it all on paper with a terrific book, Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR Is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans. The book revealed how the industry tried to discredit Michael Moore before the release of his film Sicko. One of the year's most powerful television moments came when Moore questioned Potter about it all on MSNBC's Countdown With Keith Olbermann.—The Nation

Listen to Wendell Potter on the PBS’ “Tavis Smiley” Show

Investigative journalist Gary Weiss writes extensively about DEADLY SPIN on Portfolio.com

And Alternet.org has posted an excerpt from the book.

A feature on Wendell Potter and his book Deadly Spin ran in Sunday’s (11/28) edition of the Minneapolis Star Tribune

The TruthDig.com podcast was posted yesterday

Mr. Potter (Deadly Spin) will be a guest panelist for a discussion on health care reform on FOX News’ “FOX & Friends” on Wednesday, 11/24/10.

"To get the country back on track, Potter exhorts consumers to adopt a healthy dose of skepticism toward corporate doublespeak. That’s a sound prescription, one which no American can afford not to have filled."—Joshua Kendall, The Boston Globe. Read full review.

Review from The Day (New London, CT)

Wendell Potter will be a guest panelist for a discussion on health care reform on FOX News’ “FOX & Friends” on Wednesday, 11/24/10.

Here's Newsweek's, Wendell Potter essay. It is one of the magazine’s top 10 stories online this week and has gotten 107,000 page views so far.

Time magazine's (partial) review of Wendell Potter’s Deadly Spin.

Wendell Potter, author of Deadly Spin to be interviewed on FOX Business News' "The Willis Report" concerning his comments in this Tribune Newspapers article dealing with health insurance : —Los Angeles Times

"The industry would love to have a Republican Congress," said Wendell Potter, a former executive at Cigna Corp., one of the country's biggest insurers. "They were very, very successful during the years of Republican domination in Washington." The second Forbes.com post about Deadly Spin went up yesterday and is being picked up by several blogs.

Listen to Wendell Potter (Deadly Spin) put in his two cents on Public Radio International’s “Marketplace”'s story on "Some insurers oppose health law repeal".

“[Potter] ridicules the notion that America’s free-market system can provide actual health care within a for-profit structure… This whistle-blower perspective will heighten discussion and debate on the vital topic of health care in America.”—Mary Whaley, Booklist

Potter also placed an op-ed in today’s edition of The Tennessean (Nashville) – it is also being picked up by blogs, including The Huffington Post

David Whelan of Forbes has a lengthy post today about Wendell Potter’s DEADLY SPIN on his Forbes.com “Health Dollars” blog, pulling highlights from the book (and a link to Amazon!) and promising to post more about it on Monday! So far it has been reTweeted by 7 people and has gotten 2 Diggs… Excerpt: Spying On Michael Moore And Dumping Sick People Overboard: Highlights From Wendell Potter's Harsh HMO Memoir (Part I)

The disinformation campaigns with which health insurance companies hide misdeeds and manipulate public policy are laid bare in this searing j'accuse by one of their own. Potter, a former CIGNA public relations "spin-meister" whose whistle-blowing congressional testimony made a splash, takes us into the war rooms where he and his fellow flacks battled bad publicity--their counterattack against the documentary Sicko included employee training in how to weather a Michael Moore ambush--and fought to stymie health-care legislation. (He helped formulate the rhetoric of socialism and death panels that thundered from Republican podiums.) He exposes the PR pros' propaganda tricks--fake grass-roots organizations, bogus scientific studies--and recounts his shame-faced repentance. But he also trenchantly critiques the failure of America's for-profit health-insurance system: the underhanded methods insurers use to "dump the sick"; the skyrocketing premiums and deductibles that put health care beyond the reach of millions; the obscene salaries executives rake in while denying benefits to patients. These criticisms aren't new, but Potter's street cred and deep knowledge of the industry make his indictment unusually vivid and compelling. —Publishers Weekly

"An illuminating, up-to-the-minute testimonial sure to garner widespread attention and controversy.” —Kirkus Reviews

A great blog post by Wendell Potter, author of DEADLY SPIN (on sale 11/9, pub 11/16) on The Huffington Post today – of course it has generated quite a few comments! At the bottom of the post they have included the jacket art for the book.—The Huffington Post Read blog.

Listen to Wendell Potter’s 25-minute interview about his book Deadly Spin with C-SPAN’s “BookTV” Go >

Esquire.com "The Politics Blog" feature

TheNation.com "Nation Conversations" podcast

The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN) feature

The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN) "The Shelf Life" blog post

The Tennessean (Nashville, TN) feature

The Raw Story coverage of 1/10/11 event in NYC

The Capital Times (Madison, WI) blog post

The Capital Times (Madison, WI) opinion piece by Potter

The Austin Chronicle (Austin, TX) "Newsdesk" blog post

Knoxville Metro Pulse (Knoxville, TN) feature

Hartford Courant and all Tribune newspapers (Los Angeles Times, The Baltimore Sun, etc.) web chat