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    Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR Is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans
    Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR Is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans
    Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR Is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans
    Audiobook9 hours

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

    Written by Wendell Potter

    Narrated by Patrick Lawlor

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    "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 vice president 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 public relations 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 listeners behind the scenes to show how a huge chunk of our absurd health care 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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateNov 17, 2010
    ISBN9781400189250
    Author

    Wendell Potter

    Wendell Potter is a Senior Fellow on Health Care for the Center for Media and Democracy. In 2009, he retired after a twenty-year career as a PR executive for health insurers to speak out on both the need for health care reform and the increasingly unchecked influence of corporate PR. He is a native of Tennessee.

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    Reviews for Deadly Spin

    4/5

    95 ratings32 reviews

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    • 2/5
      This purports to be a tell-all from a former CIGNA communications executive about the PR efforts health insurance companies have taken to defeat reform legislation and hurt consumers. The problem is that what Potter has to say isn't exactly secret: insurance companies hire PR companies to manage bad publicity, PR firms create fake grass-roots groups in favor of the insurance companies' policies and cultivate journalist who will file favorable stories, and for-profit insurance companies are most interested in their profits. No big surprises there. I thought there would be more about the specific efforts in relation to the recent health care legislation, but Potter glosses over that, probably because he left CIGNA in 2008 (a fact about which he is excessively self-congratulatory, given that he admits he started having doubts about the ethics of his work in the 1990s). The book feels mainly like filler--chapters on Potter's background, the history of health insurance, and PR efforts by other industries, like tobacco--but I guess I shouldn't have been surprised: PR people generally seem to confuse words and content.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Potter's book is part autobiography and wholly expose from within of how the medical insurance industry corporations have repeatedly derailed efforts at health care reform. He also details the industry's duplicitous campaign, partly successful, to defeat the health care reform legislation which President Obama sought. Potter moves on from there to summarize the "playbook" industries use to defeat reform efforts and outlines exactly how tobacco, BP and big banks have used the playbook to deflect reform. That's a lot of useful, and action-inspiring, information in 250 pages.
    • 4/5
      Wendell Potter has one message in this book: Be skeptical. As a former journalist and health insurance industry PR guru, he used his skills to deflect public attention from damaging scandals, sowed misinformation to mislead the public and increase corporate profits, until he became so sick of it that he had to quit. He wrote this exposé on the industry in an effort to educate the public on the tactics used to deceive. The public relations field is highly skilled at manipulation via spin, and the big, profitable industries (natural resources, tobacco and alcohol, health care) use every possible avenue to protect their bottom line, whether it means claiming to have your best interests at heart (they don't), funding "grass-roots" front groups, planting false media stories, flogging paid testimonials from celebrities, or in general, spreading unfounded fear.This is an eye-opening book that many people need to take note of. In particular, Americans need to educate themselves on the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). Health insurance companies with ERISA-protected plans cannot be sued by an employee if denied coverage for treatment or procedure. Too many people have discovered this after it was too late.
    • 3/5
      A decent look behind the curtain of the health insurance industry and their less than ethical practices. Also a good resource for anyone trying to understand the role of the industry in shaping healthcare policy in the US. Of course, the pretext of the book (Insurance company insider) makes it susceptible to discounts of being a diatribe by a 'disgruntled former employee'. Overall, worth the read, a good overview of the industry.
    • 5/5
      This is a tale of the conflict between conscience and commerce. Author Wendal Potter sees himself as a good guy and on the side of right as a public relations manager for a major health care insurer. But his morals and motives are put to the test when a series of events result in the death of a young girl and he is asked to do damagee control for the decisions his company made in regards to her care. Potter suddenly finds that the company's mission isn't so much about providing care for clients but rather in protecting the bottom line. Using his prior training as a journalist, Potter begins to unravel how the health care insurance industry is not only failing its customers but also how its actions are contributing to spiraling health care costs in general. What he discovers causes him to walk away from his job and to devote his life to unmasking the truth on how health "care" operates.While this book is a chilling account of what goes on behind the scenes in the health insurance industry the implications of what Potter writes about goes much deeper. He unmasks what public relations does to disguise half-truths and out-and-out lies as "news" and fact. This is an important book for any consumer whether for health care, financial products or consumer goods. His message can be summed as: buyer beward and always look to where the money flows. Highly recommended.
    • 5/5
      After years of working for the healthcare industry as a PR "man," Wendell Potter made a break with big insurer CIGNA to speak out about the strategies and tricks used by healthcare insurance companies (among others) to manipulate public and political opinion in their favor. Although Potter covers at length the various techniques in the PR "playbook" developed by Big Tobacco and subsequently used by other corporations, the book reads as more of a personal narrative about how and why Potter "woke up" to the role he played in protecting these corporate behemoths and what finally made him break with the insurance industry altogether.What really makes Potter's story intriguing, and very frightening, is that he shows us how the big insurers "think," as well as how they behave toward their customers. He is not the victim of claim denial or dropped coverage; instead, he walks the read through how "the industry" finds (or creates) loopholes in laws or simply use the power of PR and lobbying to maintain their stranglehold on healthcare, in much the same manner a detective might "profile" a serial killer. We get the nuts and bolts from someone who "speaks the language" of big insurance, and gives us insight to the nasty inner workings of the HMO "mind".In the end, Potter admits that "it's all about the Benjamins"--and that big healthcare insurers are willing to spend millions, if not billions to guarantee their "right" to control healthcare, even at the expense of the general health of our nation. [Which I must say, seems like cutting one's nose off to spite one's face; the HMOs could simply cover people's healthcare with the amount of money they spend on PR and lobbying.]The final two chapters of Deadly Spin focus on the specific industries that developed and use the increasingly unethical strategies and techniques of PR spin-doctoring, including creating front groups to provide the appearance of "grassroots" organizations, playing the "we're part of the solution" card, and using ad campaigns to denigrate or undermine the oppositions position, no matter how credible it may in fact be. As a career educator, I am always seeking new and better ways to help students understand how media works to manipulate public opinion, and ultimately, to get what "they" want. These final chapters could be helpful in demonstrating how spin is used as a tool of persuasion and manipulation, especially by corporations, to instill their "brand" and make them seem benign or benevolent. Yet, like Potter warns, trust these industries at your own risk, since in the end they aren't about caring whether your air is clean or water drinkable. They are about profit plain and simple. And, power, I might add.
    • 4/5
      Wendell Potter worked for the big health insurer, CIGNA, as a public relations executive until around 2009, when, out of an act of conscience he decided he could not work for them any more. The death of Nataline Sarkisyan, because she was denied coverage by CIGNA, was the catalyst in his leaving the company and becoming a critic of the industry. Mr. Potter takes a clear stand against the for-profit health care industry and supports whole heartedly the 2010 Affordable Health Care Act passed under the Obama administration. Having worked for years spinning the news for a health care company, Wendell Potter speaks credibly and knowledgeably about health care in America. This book isn’t just about the health care industry but, rather, on the multi-million dollar campaigns that corporations like it have waged to change minds by distorting the truth. How it has influenced public opinion through the media and the lobbying it does in Washington. In fact, the book provides a mini history of public relations and how, disturbingly, it is embracing more controversial and unethical practices. In the paperback edition there is a resource guide that lists the websites of advocacy groups for almost every state, unions and government sources for anybody interested in pursuing the health care reform issue further. It's a timely and important book. Read it .
    • 4/5
      This was a fascinating book by a former PR executive for CIGNA who decided that he needed to change careers. Potter ended up testifying in front of Congress during the debates over the health care reform law. In this easy to read book, he describes his personal involvement in many PR activities around discrediting the movie Sicko along with how the insurance industry killed the Clinton health care plan back in the 90s. Lots of tactics are described but not in such crazy detail that you cannot follow. I became interested in this book after Potter's interview with Bill Moyers. This book is a quick and easy read about how companies, not just the health insurance industry, uses PR and some shady tactics to be successful.
    • 5/5
      This is an excellent, utterly enraging book about the health "insurance" industry, and why for-profit health "insurance" actually insures nothing but record profits for the company shareholders, and record salaries and bonuses for the company exectutives.Briefly, the profit has to come from somewhere. Since these are for-profit companies, they not only have to be profitable each quarter, but are expected to be ever-more profitable in each quarter. This means that while non-profit health insurance companies have managed something like 90-95% of the money people pay them to go to the aqctual health CARE of the subscribers, in the for-profit companies all money that they have to pay out for actual health CARE is considered a LOSS, and they've minimized it to the point of something like 75-77%; the rest goes to imp[ortant things like making sure there's no legislation passed that will disrupt their profits, and paying off the execs.It is also scary to know that any insurance company, pretty much, at any time, can deny any treatment at all, and aside from their in-house appeals process- overseen by the execs that would lose money if their stock option prices went down as a result of "overspending" on subscriber CARE- there is utterly no recourse. They cannot even be sued effectively. Plus- and here's a neat catch!- if the subscriber DIES as a result of their denial of care, they can't be sued AT ALL.There's a lot of information in this book about how it all got this way, and some about what can be done about it... though it looks like a pretty impossible battle; the companies have it well sewn up at this point, and now that we're going to be required to buy their products, no matter how expensive and useless they are... well PROFIT!!!!The author was a highly-placed executive in CIGNA, in charge of PR (which is a large amount of the problem) until he quit in disgust and started blowing the whistle. He talks about how that evolution happened, which was fascinating.Highly recommended, if you have the stomach for it.
    • 3/5
      scary book. It is shocking at how bad are health system is. Wendell Potter was in the industry for 20+ years and finally couldn't stomach what was happening and wrote this whistle blower book. A little choppy but overall a good read
    • 4/5
      Review of the paperback edition, published in 2011. Includes new foreword by Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV and a list of resources for further information.The subtitle of the book is “An insurance company insider speaks out on how corporate PR is killing health care and deceiving Americans.” The author, Wendell Potter, is a former journalist who spent most of his professional life as a public relations person in two health insurance companies including the giant, CIGNA. There he was heavily involved in developing propaganda to make his company look good – to mislead the public. The most interesting part of the book occurs when Mr. Potter talks about his personal involvement in PR giving specific examples of how he aided the spreading of untruths – the “spinning” or distortion of information to convince the public that his company or the health insurance industry was interested in caring for the sick when it was actually more interested in making the highest profits possible, of enriching the CEOs of the company. Mr. Potter also tells the history of unsuccessful efforts at reforming health care in the United States, and shows how the insurance industry worked against the reforms.In the next to last chapter Mr. Potter discusses recent PR propaganda used by other industries including the tobacco, big oil, big soda, and big banking industries. In the last chapter he discusses the current state of journalism in the United States. Throughout the book Mr. Potter uses acronyms; it is almost like alphabet soup in the chapter about other industries.The overall tone of the book is frightening in its truthful description of the power of various lobbies, front groups for large corporations, etc. in influencing government. Mr. Potter provides a useful list of resources divided into the following categories: government and quasi-government sources, consumer-interest groups, national advocacy and consumer groups and unions, and state-based advocacy and consumer groups. His list includes the web address and telephone numbers for each organization; for the national groups he also provides a brief description of what they do.
    • 3/5
      As many people have said before me, this book brings an important problem to light. What the health insurance companies are doing in this country to keep affordable health care from the average person, and fighting the government from passing meaningful regulation. All in the effort to keep their profits. What I feel is lacking is the writing, many cliches that just sap the strength of his argument and frankly annoys me as a reader. Also it feels that this book has been told before many times, and he is just looking to profit off of the sad tales. The writing at many times feels uninspired. I just wish that the writing was better or someone else took on this topic.
    • 4/5
      I'd echo some of the sentiments shared in the other reviews. For the most part this writing seems, for some undefinable reason, lacking. Maybe it's somewhat uninspired? It's hard to tell. He resorts frequently to cliches that sap some of the more moving parts from their impact.Having said that, I liked how he stated from the beginning what his goals were in writing the book (namely that he was focusing on the impact of PR on the history of health care) and stuck to that. It's true he talks of the gross injustices committed sometimes by insurers, but his point, at least in my reading, was to show us how "spin" was used to make the insurers look like the good guys. Another reviewer lamented the fact that no solution is presented, but I disagree. I don't disagree that a solution to health care wasn't given, but I disagree in the sense that I don't think Potter intended to lay out a plan. His summary chapter laid out the upshot of the book. He simply wants us to understand how spin works and how to recognize it. He references Alex Jones of Harvard University's Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics, and Public Policy to paint a bleak picture of the future in which we no longer have access to unbiased news and what we will actually read is spin designed to look like news. Without trying to buoy our spirits by suggesting there is a way to avoid this potential reality, he gives a survival guide on how to cut through the puff and deception. He does end it with a brief passage that might bring hope to some readers, but that doesn't seem to me to be the point of his mea culpa.Overall I think it was an informative book, but it won't make you an expert on health care.
    • 2/5
      I was really looking forward to reading this book because the healthcare system in the US is so different from the one in Canada and I wanted to learn how it worked for myself. I know that health care is such a sensitive topic and that members of the health care community become lobbyists and supporters or political parties so I was eager to read this book to see if it proposed a solution.It really didn't. I got the impression that this insider turned on his former life and partners-in-crime only because he could get something from it - not because he truly believes that what they are doing is wrong. As well, I didn't find it well-written. Boring, in fact.-
    • 2/5
      There is an old joke that defines Canadians as unarmed Americans with health insurance. It's not far off the mark since gun control and government-funded health care seem to be among the most hotly contested and divisive public policy issues. As a Canadian, I requested this book from Early Reviewers to get a better understanding of why the structure of the U.S health care system is so different from that found in other democratic nations and why it is so passionately defended despite its shortcomings. Deadly Spin purports to be an insider's account of the rights and (mostly) wrongs of the current U.S. health care system written by Wendell Potter, a former public relations executive for two of the top insurance companies in the business. The background chapter on the development and rise of the American health industry was, for me, the best and most informative part of the book. As an exposé, however, it left me underwhelmed. Either Potter was incredibly naïve (for decades on end) about what his job as a spin doctor entailed or deeply and deliberately in denial about the damage---not to mention financial ruin---health insurance companies (and his own actions within them) routinely cause in denying legitimate coverage and/or compensation to their subscribers. Neither Potter’s insights nor analyses run very deep, regardless of whether he’s discussing his own or his industry’s culpability. His revelations are commonplace and "shocking" only in that he came to realize them (not to mention publicly confess to them) so late. His sudden conversion from willing lackey to crusading whistle-blower rings false to my ears, and the cynic in me suspects this book is more about saving face than saving lives.
    • 4/5
      Deadly Spin read more like a memoir for the first half, as Potter explains how he got from CIGNA PR executive to media watchdog, and more like an engrossing lecture on PR Campaign Behavior, Goals, and Remedies for the second half. Potter presents a nice composition of education in PR, personal history, and message (because he does have one) to bring the reader up to speed and get to his point. This is an informed observation of PR behavior not only in the Health Insurance industry, but in many large for-profit industries, and a nice dissection of the methods and means behind the PR pushes and the industries' goals. I found myself pleasantly educated and full of righteous fury while reading it. I find myself hoping that that fury doesn't dissipate under the fruits of the author's former profession.
    • 5/5
      I think this book should be required reading for every person in the U.S. It covers the history of health care in America and the behind the scenes manipulation of the media and people's beliefs.. Wendell Potter shares his own career decisions and why he finally felt he could no longer work for CIGNA. It is easy to say he gives himself a pass but I don't know how condemning that is. He acknowledges his desire for success and his personal difficulties with the choices he makes to become successful. I thought I knew a lot about insurance but I learned so much about how Public Relations informs our opinions. A lot of people get most of their information from the media and accept it as is. The media gets a lot of its information from PR firms or other media outlets. Anyone who thinks they are getting the "news" on television and/or in print needs to read this book.
    • 3/5
      This book is an attempt to atone for when his employer, CIGNA, denies a liver transplant to a Los Angeles teen and thus lets her die. His point: health insurance companies are greedy and useless. I think I already knew this, but I guess it is nice to have it confirmed.
    • 2/5
      Yeah, not so much. There’s a lot of generality about misleadingness, along with a history of PR, but nothing that really goes deep or explains more than you already know: health insurers are trying to terrify people with health insurance into opposing any limits on what insurers can do or charge, while at the same time they deny treatment to the actually sick.
    • 5/5
      Everyone in the US should read this book
    • 4/5
      Much of what needs to be said about Deadly Spin has already been said by other LibraryThing Early Reviewers including queencersei, trinibaby9 and stevesmits. I required a very long time to read the book. It is not badly written despite the filler noted by an earlier reviewer. But for me, reading the book was a painful experience. I could take only a little at a time. Most of us know that public opinion and thus public policy are manipulated by professional public relations firms paid by industry lobbying groups, single issue advocacy groups with huge memberships, and well-financed political candidates. And most of us realize that the relation between truth and public relations as it is so often practiced today is quite tenuous. But to see an example of just how easily the public interest is thwarted by well-financed industry lobbying groups as they pay to have created the public opinion they want further disheartens even a cynic like myself. If public opinion can be manufactured at will by major financial interests, how much democracy remains in America? It is valuable that the author points out the pioneering role of the tobacco industry in creating the model for this sort of deception. And while most of us have some awareness of the techniques used, it is important to review "The Playbook Fundamentals" layed out on pages 222-223 in their explicit but condensed detail. The quality of our education is declining in America while public manipulation techniques are on the rise. That makes it very difficult for me to be optimistic about our future. But as a citizen, I extend my gratitude to Wendell Potter for writing this important book.
    • 4/5
      Wendell Potter has written a convincing tell all against the major American insurance companies and the legions of PR flaks and lawyers who they employ to keep them profitable. Deadly Spin lays out Potters two decade career as a ‘Spin Master’ for two major insurance companies, including CIGNA. He methodically lays out not only the history of how for profit insurance has become entrenched in America, but how these companies actively work against assisting even their own paying members. Deception, distortion, outright lies and even a hint of bribery seem to be all in a day’s work as hundreds of thousands of American’s are thrust into the ranks of no insurance or the underinsured all in a quest to meet Wall Street expectations and line the pockets of a handful of fat cat executives. Indeed, the sickest patient of all is the American health care system itself.Where the story falls flat is Potter’s half hearted attempt to convince readers that he really isn’t a bad person, while explaining in detail how he spent nearly two decades helping to protect the system that he knew was harming if not outright killing thousands of Americans every single year. After working to kill Clinton’s health care reform in the 1990’s, squashing the ‘horror stories’ that regularly threatened companies like CIGNA with bad publicity, and then gearing up to destroy health care reform under Obama, Potter suddenly saw the light at a 2008 free medical clinic in the mid-West. While it is nice that he finally has come to see the damage he caused in the course of his profession, it rings of being too little, too late for millions of Americans, such as Nataline Sarkisyan.
    • 5/5
      As a Canadian, living in a country with free health care for all, I found this book incredibly hard to read. The facts listed in this book rocked me to my core. On some level we all know that health care is not universal and standardized in America. Do we really know what that means though? Do we ever stop to think of it from a statistical stand point. I certainly did not. The idea that forty five thousand people die in America every year because they have no health insurance is mind boggling. The fact that a country which touts itself as the greatest on Earth, also happens to be the only industrialized nation in the world without universal health care is unbelievable. I never knew that a lack of affordable health care in America meant people ( many of them working class) lined up in the rain at fair grounds to receive medical treatment from a program designed to deilver care to remote areas of third world countries! The figures on paper in black and white are staggering. The average family health plan costs $13 375, yet the average income for mimnimum wage employees is $11 500! A family with two working adults can not afford even the most basic of plans because the monthly premium is $858 dollars, with a deductible of $11 000. Even if people do manage to somehow afford coverage, the insurance comapnies do everything in their power to avoid pay outs or deny coverage to their subscribers. Even a person with broken arm, can be denied coverage because it could some be the result of a pre-existing condition. The power of PR and spin are just astonishing. The ability of these people to manipulate politicians, health care providers and the general public is beyond belief. They are like master puppeteers controling the health and well being of an entire nation, all in an attempt to line their already overflowing pockets. To see the number of times attempts at universal health care were derailed by fear mongering and propaganda is heart breaking. I've rarely had a book prevoke such strong reactions. The stories are facts are absolutely heart breaking and it is enough to bring a person to tears. Knowing what it is like to live in a country where people are treated freely and without bias makes it even more upsetting.This book is a step by step look at the evolution of health care in America. From it's very beginnings to what it's become today. It shows us the power of words, manipulation, fear and ignorance. It shows us that much of our daily lives are being controlled by the powerful few. It shows us what could have been, and the results of not having something that is available in even in the poorest of countries world wide. The American people are suffering, and being treated like cattle instead of human beings. People should not have to be afraid to see medical attention. No one should be turned away. Lining up in the rain for hours just to be seen, is not acceptable. Health care companies and their PR teams are a well oiled and terrifying machine. If only the government who is supposed to be representing and caring for the well being of their people were this efficient. This is a must read for everyone. Whether you are American or living elsewhere. These facts should not be left unread or unreported. The insiders perspective is amazing, and the author holds nothing back in an attempt to spare himself. He owns up to his misdeeds and exposes those of others. I cant' stress enough that people should read this book. It's saddening, mind blowing and informative all at once. I would encourage everyone to pick it up.
    • 5/5
      Well written – an “advance reading copy” that didn’t need another round of editing.That doesn’t mean it’s an enjoyable read, however. Potter’s skill in writing an appalling truth only makes it more dreadful.Since I was a kid I’ve been a bit more interested in the third-party payer system than most consumers, as my mother was an insurance administrator for a large hospital. If Blue Cross didn’t get their paperwork exactly the way they liked it, the hospital wouldn’t be able to make payroll. It was totally dependent on the cash flow from that dominant payer.It didn’t take very long to get into our mess, and will take a whole lot longer to get out of it. Potter did a great job of first humanizing his experience and observations, before digging into policy – and then remained fairly objective.Before anyone complains about Congress not fixing health care, they should read Deadly Spin.And consumers beware of any corporate policy idea that claims to be “part of the solution.”
    • 5/5
      A very well-written explanation of the transformation of American health care from care to a for-profit industry whose primary concern is not the health or care of the American people, but the profits enjoyed by the companies, CEOs and stock holders. I wish I had the funds to buy copies for my senators and representative, but I have to pay health insurance premiums.
    • 4/5
      What I liked about this book most is that Potter does not pull any punches. He gives himself a bit of a pass, though. How could he not really know or care what his company was responsible for so many years? Anyhow, the insider knowledge of the insurance industry does not disappoint: its scheming to make as much money as possible should be no surprise. But they have been enabled by a government that is almost as corrupt. We’ve really got to change how the health care system is run in this country and take the power out of Pharma and Insurance lobbyist hands.
    • 5/5
      This is an important book that draws vivid focus to the propaganda machine working to shape public opinion and public policy on health care financing in America. Wendell Potter was a top public relations executive at the CIGNA health insurance corporation. After a sort of "road to Damascus" experience, he realized he could no longer contribute to the unethcial and deceptive "spin" strategies and tactics that his company and the industry uses to delude the public and manipulate opinion about health insurance abuses.The motives and tactics of the for-profit health insurance industry that Potter describes are not new revelations. We have known or suspected that the industry (and others like big tobacco and big oil) use PR spin methods to shape public opinion and draw attention away from their abuses. But the extent of such manipulation and its dishonesty is quite shocking and should enrage us. Such means as phony "grassroots" advocacy groups, soothing, feel-good media advertising (remember BP after the spill?), fear mongering and manipulating statistics are not new to the health care debate. That they are so widespread and so effective in distoring the truth and molding opinion for disguised corporate self-interest is a major point of Potter's book. The aggressiveness of corporations in engaging in these unethical practices and their willingness to spare no expense to promote distorted messages should be a concern to all Americans who value the open exchange of honest information in our democracy. Potter cautions us to be wary of messages that shift focus away from problemmatic products (tobacco, fossil fuels) or controversial actions (oil spills, retroactive denial of insurance coverage, etc.) to fuzzy emotion-laden, sometimes scare tactic style messages -- "caps on CO2 emissions will cost you your job", "Obamacare is socialized medicine", "death panels", etc. This is great advice, but the spin machine is very powerful and unquestionably very effective. What could be of greater importance to the self-interests of Americans than access to affordable health care? Yet, the PR propaganda machine has turned this debate on its head by sublimating the real interest of the industry (increasing share value and profits) and refocusing public attention on red herring issues. Potter also suggests that there are two other culprits here: the media for doing lousy, superficial reporting on these blatant PR campaigns, and, most sigificantly, us! Our gullibility and lack of critical consideration of these efforts to manipulate us is the main reason they succeed and, sadly, will likely continue.
    • 5/5
      The title of this book, "Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans" is a bit off-putting. Reading it, I mentally prepared myself for a diatribe written by a disgruntled low-level employee out to get his pound of flesh. we all know that health insurance companies are in the habit of denying coverage and raising premiums, occasionally exorbitantly, but they aren’t all that bad, right? Surely not as bad as the Wall Street firms that first took away our retirement savings and then our jobs.I worked in the financial industry for 25 years. Nothing I saw there was as heinous as what is revealed in this book. Put simply, Wall Street may take away people’s money, but health insurance companies take away people’s lives.Author Wendell Potter was an insurance company executive, heading up a PR department. For years, he participated in the shameless pursuit of profits over lives until he finally came face to face with the effects on real people of what he was doing. Visiting a clinic set up on a fair ground offering free health care to those who had no insurance and no means to pay for health care, he saw ordinary hardworking people reduced to being treated in animal stalls.He has written about his experience in the health insurance industry, as well as his epiphany, in a straightforward manner, making it more powerful than if he had penned an hysterical screed. He takes us, step by step through the changes in the health insurance industry from a privately held companies offering true health insurance to the modern publicly owned companies whose focus is on profits rather than health.The lengths to which health insurers go and the collusions in which they participate are extraordinary. They routinely deny coverage to people who need it and drop coverage of people who become ill. They hire outside PR firms who form bogus grassroots groups who lobby in favor of health insurers. They provide statistics to back up all of their false claims that any kind of healthcare reform is bad.Potter devotes an entire chapter to revealing how health insurers torpedoed Healthcare Reform using all of the dirty tricks he had discussed in previous chapters. The reason we have no public option is because it would put the health insurance industry out of business prompting them to wage all-out war against it.It took the death of a child who was denied a liver transplant to convince Potter to leave his job with CIGNA. He devotes his time now to healthcare reform advocacy and as a health insurance critic. He testified during the healthcare reform debates, but obviously not enough people listened to him.In my opinion, this book should be required reading for every member of Congress. They need to know how they have been bribed and manipulated by the health insurers to do what’s best for the health insurance industry instead of what is best for the people who elected them to office.
    • 4/5
      For 20 years Wendell Potter worked in public relations. He resigned as corporate communications director at CIGNA in 2008. A year later he was testifying before the a Senate sub-committee on the need for reform and for health insurance companies to be more transparent. His book is both a history of why the US remains the only industrial country in the world without universal health care and how we are manipulated by public relations firms to believe that up is down and white is black. It is a story of fear, name-calling, euphemisms, and the use of glittering generalities to convince us that Obama-care was socialist medicine with “death panels” and that a proposed public option would wipe out existing health care plans for 119 million Americans. Never mind that the existing public plan – Medicare – has lower administrative costs and annual spending growth much lower than private insurers' over the past 10 years. Public relations firms are the major villains in this story – and rightly so. It appears to be an industry that doesn't always follow its own ethical standards and often places their own profits over the interests of the public at-large. They spoon feed a media that frequently accepts the spinning press releases rather than doing the hard investigative work required to explain faulty research studies and expose the astro-turf citizen groups that spring up every time there is an effort to reign in some of the bigger abuses. Of course, it couldn't be accomplished without the help of the health insurance companies, the tobacco industry, big oil, financial institutions, and beverage companies that are willing to spend the hundreds of million of dollars a year to influence public opinion and lobby everyone from city councils to the U.S. Congress and regulators to increase stock prices and provide even bigger paydays for the executives who run these companies. This book is a quick read and the behind-the-scenes efforts to kill health care make a good story. Wendell Potter remains an optimist about our ability to create a more equitable health care system and that someday we will be wise to the spin. After reading this book, I am not.
    • 5/5
      As a 25 year veteran of marketing, I was disturbed but not shocked by the revelations in this book. Potter demonstrates the limits of the efficacy of the profit motive as a means of providing better services. Spin has unfortunately become a fact of life in every aspect of our lives, and the danger of this fact is that economic decisions are made about aspects of life that most of us would prefer weren't examined in the context of dollars and cents.I admire Potter for his willingness to try to right past wrongs, and his refusal to assume the "I was only following orders" stance demonstrates his virtue and his embrace of his role as concerned citizen. The stories in this book, and his electric testimony before Congress, are an absolutely critical perspective in the ongoing debate about what path we should take as a nation re healthcare. Potter rightly warns us to consider the motives of a whistleblower, but in his case I am more than satisfied that his motives were genuine and good.Read it and be better informed. And a bit frightened for the future.