( – promoted by Sue Prent)
VT Digger just posted this press release (note: I’ve bolded info about a Friday appearance, in Burlington):
Wendell Potter, former Cigna executive, to speak at Statehouse about industry’s ‘deadly practices’
By Press Release on February 13, 2011
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 10, 2011CONTACT:
Deborah Richter, M.D.
(802) 371-7754
drdebvt@sover.netEllen Oxfeld
(802) 388-7214
oxfeld@middlebury.edu
What:Testimony at the Vermont Statehouse by a former public relations executive in the private health insurance industry who is now an outspoken critic of that industry’s practices, with special reference to the potential impact of such PR on the health care reform process in Vermont.
Who:Wendell Potter, former head of communications at Cigna insurance company, now senior analyst at the Center for Public Integrity and senior fellow on health care at the Center for Media and Democracy, and author of the new book Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR Is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (introducing Wendell Potter via pre-recorded video connection).
Where:Vermont Statehouse, 115 State St., Room 11, Montpelier
When:12:15 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 24, 2011
Mr. Potter will make a second appearance on Friday, Feb. 25 at 7 p.m. in Contois Auditorium, City Hall, Burlington, Vermont.
Since Wendell Potter walked away as head of communications at Cigna in May 2008, he’s become a high-profile critic of the methods used by the insurance companies to deny health care to Americans. He has also spoken out and written about the health insurance industry’s role in manipulating public opinion, including by stoking unfounded fears about reform and by underwriting phony “nonpartisan” and “grassroots” organizations to covertly promote the industry’s goals.
Potter, who has been called “the ideal whistleblower” by Time magazine, will be joined by Sen. Sanders (who will introduce him through a pre-recorded video) at the Statehouse. Potter will speak about the dangers these industry practices pose to the integrity of the public debate about health care reform in Vermont.
Sponsors:Vermont Health Care for All (Vermont for Single Payer), UVM United Academics, United Professions AFT Vermont, and Vermont Physicians for a National Health Program.
The pie is simply not big enough to include those who have nothing to do w/health care but merely skimming the top & whose sole purpose is to to make money selling & administrating the services by merely shuffling paperwork around.
It’s barely big enough to include all that are in need of the services, as well as the health care professionals who are actually doing the work & providing the services.