by Baja K | 03.04.2010

Message below is from CMD, "Center for Media and Democracy", aka PR Watch. 
 Mr. Potter, in Philly not long ago, pooh-poohed the problem with CIGNA and other insurers investing billions in the cigarette industry (as per PNHP revelations) saying that it's just "indexing", like any of us having not-so-great investments in our portfolios.     But we are not health insurers. We have no conflicts of interest that affect the health of the public.  And we, individually, don't have Billions of dollars at stake.   If health insurers were widely known to be billion dollar owners of the popularly despised, allegedly top-health DAMAGING cigarette industry (and tobacco pesticide mfgrs), well....imagine how the White House and Congress would deal with that.    Back to scratch?

 Is Mr. Potter a real "whistleblower"?  Fake whistleblowers are not unknown. Classic trick. They pretend to be giving us a  look into Pandora's Box.....but never enough to be effective. Just enough to make us think Something Is Being Done.

 Jeffrey Weigand, famous "tobacco" whistleblower ("The Insider", etc), only seemed to know about ammonia added to cigs to increase addiction.   He seemed NOT to know about the 450 registered tobacco pesticides, carcinogenic rads from certain fertilizers, fake tobacco, added burn accelerants, added kid attracting stuff, or even the dioxins from chlorine adulterants.

   And he didn't have a word to say about the over 1100  Untested, often toxic, non-tobacco additives from which cig makers concoct their secret (from the public) recipes. (See "kid attracting stuff" again.)    The public is not allowed to know what the firms we license are doing.   We are very lax employers of our public servants..dangerously so.

 Weigand knew how to "whistle":  He put his lips together (on those inconvenient topics) and KEPT them together.  Lauren Bacall would be turning in her grave, if she were dead.

 Anne Landman, who sent the message from CMD, used to be with the Am Lung Assn, composed of establishment medical professionals, not one (apparently) who seem to know anything about (or dare say anything about)  the harms to lungs from industrial things like pesticides, dioxins, radiation, and etc.be they in typical cigarettes or anywhere.    She actually used to pay some attention to the industrial rads and dioxins etc in typical cigarettes.. .but not any more.

 Reading the CMD/PR Watch blurb below, it's apparent that Potter and CMD both prefer the Private Insurance Industry "solution" to the problems caused by...the private insurance industry.

    As much as we like Bill Moyers for some things (the Better-Than-Nothing syndrome), it's well to remember that this is PBS...the not-so-public Petroleum Broadcast System.  Caveats are in order.

   Read the blurb below. When Potter speaks of guaranteeing health coverage for all, he MEANS compelling people to patronize Private Insurers, and guaranteeing that anyone who does not (in the compulsory income levels) will be penalized.

CMD's Wendell Potter to Appear on Bill Moyers' Journal

Wendell Potter with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

The Center for Media and Democracy's own Wendell Potter, former head Corporate Communications for CIGNA, and now the Center for Media and Democracy's Senior Fellow on Health Care, is going to New York City to tape an interview with Bill Moyers for his show, Bill Moyers' Journal, to be broadcast Friday night, March 5.

Mr. Potter will appear with Marcia Angell, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, who will argue that Congress should scrap current legislation and wait for the current system to collapse, because then country will accept a single-payer system. Mr. Potter will argue that the country cannot wait for that point, that too many lives are at stake and the health reform bills, as imperfect as they are, contain important reforms that will guarantee coverage for millions of uninsured people. CMD is also proud to announce that Mr. Potter has been appointed the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC)-Funded Consumer Representative for 2010. The NAIC is the organization of state insurance regulators for all 50 of the United States, Washington D.C., and five U.S. territories. It assists state insurance regulators in protecting the public interest, promoting competitive markets, and facilitates the fair and equitable treatment of insurance consumers.

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