July, 10 2009, 10:36am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
Insider on Health Insurance PR
WASHINGTON
The Bill Moyers Journal webpage states: "Last month, testimony in front of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation by a former health insurance insider named Wendell Potter made news even before it occurred: CBS News headlined: 'Cigna Whistleblower to Testify.' After Potter's testimony the industry scrambled to do damage control: 'Insurers defend rescissions, take heat for lack of transparency.'
"In his first television interview since leaving the health insurance industry, Wendell Potter tells Bill Moyers [Friday] why he left his successful career as the head of Public Relations for CIGNA, one of the nation's largest insurers, and decided to speak out against the industry."
WENDELL POTTER, via Sari Williams
Now senior fellow on health care for the Center for Media and Democracy, Potter recently wrote: "In addition to my responsibilities at CIGNA, which included serving as the company's chief spokesman to the media on all corporate and financial matters, I also served on a lot of trade association committees and industry-financed coalitions, many of which were essentially front groups for insurers. So I was in a unique position to see not only how Wall Street analysts and investors influence decisions insurance company executives make but also how the industry has carried out behind-the-scenes PR and lobbying campaigns to kill or weaken any health care reform efforts that threatened insurers' profitability."
A nationwide consortium, the Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA) represents an unprecedented effort to bring other voices to the mass-media table often dominated by a few major think tanks. IPA works to broaden public discourse in mainstream media, while building communication with alternative media outlets and grassroots activists.
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