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Wendell Potter Profile picture
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Oct 16, 2019 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
This debate is ridiculous people. Take it from a former health insurance exec. This isn’t hard! #DemDebate
Our corporate health insurance system is COLLAPSING. The employer-based system is COLLAPSING.
Wake up to the reality of Americans going bankrupt or losing their homes because they get sick and you realize #MedicareforAll is inevitable. There is no other solution.
People are HOMELESS because they get cancer. Small businesses are CLOSING because of health insurance costs. Children are DYING because insurance companies are denying their care.
I know because I’ve seen it. This isn’t abstract. It’s deadly. And it’s wrong. Stand up and demand nothing less than #MedicareForAll, America.
And I’ll say this: if you don’t back #MedicareForAll at the #DemDebate, you back the corporate insurance industry that isn’t there when everyday Americans need it. And you are repeating that industry’s talking points I helped create.
I helped craft those talking points. So trust me when I say I see you, I’m watching and darn it, this son of East Tennessee is going to call you out for it! CC: @JoeBiden @KamalaHarris @PeteButtigieg @BetoORourke

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More from @wendellpotter

Wendell Potter Profile picture
Feb 2
Really appreciate @RepSchakowsky calling out health insurer profiteering during the Congressional hearing today about price gouging during the COVID-19 pandemic.

As she noted @UnitedHealthGrp made $24 billion in profits in 2021.

More on that here:
wendellpotter.substack.com/p/while-united…
Instead of reducing premiums and deductibles, @UnitedHealthGrp gave shareholders $5 billion in dividends + spent $5 billion of premium dollars buying back its own stock shares.

Deductibles and out-of-pockets have spiked, increasing more than 200% in most states over the decade.
That’s why dozens of organizations have formed the Lower Out-of-Pockets NOW coalition (@loopcoalition). Congress must act to hold insurers accountable to help end this growing crisis.

For more on LOOP, head to the link below. loopcoalition.co
Read 5 tweets
Wendell Potter Profile picture
Oct 19, 2021
Still unvaccinated? There's an increasingly pressing reason – beyond the threat to the health of you and your loved ones – to get the shot against COVID-19: many health insurance companies are no longer waiving out-of-pocket costs for COVID treatment. 1/7
A new study has found 5% of privately insured COVID-19 patients were billed an average of $3,800 between March and Sept 2020, when most insurers *had waived* OOP costs for COVID care. 2/7
modernhealthcare.com/finance/covid-…
At one time, nearly 90% of private health insurers in the U.S. had waived co-pays, coinsurance and deductibles for COVID care. But that number has been dropping since the start of 2021, when vaccines became readily available. 3/7
webmd.com/lung/news/2021…
Read 7 tweets
Wendell Potter Profile picture
Sep 15, 2021
Today is a big day for me because it’s a major milestone in my decade-long effort to get relief for millions of Americans with health insurance who can’t use it because my former employers have saddled them with out-of-pocket requirements many can’t possibly afford.
My team at @CforHD and I today are joining forces with 17 other organizations to launch the Lower Out-of-Pockets NOW Coalition, built of groups representing patients, doctors, businesses owners, consumers and more.

Find out more about the coalition here: loopcoalition.co
Out of the gate we’re sending letters to Congressional leaders to make sure this is a top priority as they work on budget reconciliation.

Making premiums more affordable is important, but what good is insurance if using it could cost you your home or force you into bankruptcy?
Read 4 tweets
Wendell Potter Profile picture
Jul 22, 2021
In a bombshell piece this week, @sarahkliff & @sangerkatz revealed that Americans owe much more in medical debt than previously thought, as collection agencies held $140 billion in unpaid medical bills in 2020.

Here's the crazy part: the real total is WAY higher. Let me explain.
First, as the piece notes, the $140b doesn’t include anywhere close to all the medical bills Americans owe, just debts that have been sold to collection agencies. Not counted are bills patients put on credit cards & try to pay off. Many of those patients will never pay them off.
Another crucially important fact the @nytimes story does not mention is that much of Americans’ medical debt--maybe more than half of it--is owed not by the uninsured... but by people who have health insurance!
Read 11 tweets
Wendell Potter Profile picture
Jun 17, 2021
Now that the Supreme Court has once again upheld the Affordable Care Act, lawmakers in Washington and the states must get serious about fixing its flaws and addressing what one Obama administration official called “a huge mistake.”
It’s good that the law enabled 21 million people to get health insurance but 30 million are still uninsured.

The other problem is that 40% of people with Obamacare insurance and 30% with coverage through employers can’t use it b/c of impossibly high out-of-pocket requirements.
That’s the huge mistake that Zeke Emanuel, one of the architects of the law, acknowledged last year. Lawmakers should have known better than to trust health insurers and they should not have allowed the out-of-pocket limit to soar through the stratosphere.
Read 5 tweets
Wendell Potter Profile picture
Jun 10, 2021
IMPORTANT: While many of us fought for major reform to our broken health care system (and President Biden campaigned on a public option), nothing has happened on the federal level.

But! Serious action is happening in the states. Most recently: Nevada. Here's why that matters:
The Nevada Option was just signed by its governor, and will lower premiums & cover 350k uninsured Nevadans. The bad news? The fight wasn’t easy, as the industry poured millions into propaganda to confuse voters.

The good news? We now have a blueprint for how to beat them back.
To counter the industry's lies (that are designed to protect their profits), we at @cforhd testified before the legislature, ran ads, wrote op-eds, wrote to legislators, distributed posters & beat them at their own game. The lesson is clear: We can win this battle elsewhere, too.
Read 6 tweets

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