Reviews
As one former insurance executive testified before Congress, insurance companies are not only encouraged to find reasons to drop the seriously ill; they are rewarded for it. All of this is in service of meeting what [Potter] called 'Wall Street's relentless profit expectations.', What sets this book apart is that it is one of the few volumes that examine ethical shortcomings of American public relations.... this book is more than just one PR man's tell-all book about the insurance industry. It's a wake-up call., To get the country back on track, Potter exhorts consumers to adopt a healthy dose of skepticism toward corporate doublespeak. That's a sound prescription, one which no American can afford not to have filled., [Potter] trenchantly critiques the failure of America's for-profit health-insurance system.... [and his] street cred and deep knowledge of the industry make his indictment unusually vivid and compelling., [Potter] ridicules the notion that America's free-market system can provide actual health care within a for-profit structure... This whistle-blower perspective will heighten discussion and debate on the vital topic of health care in America., The recently passed health care bill did many good things, including make health insurance available to more Americans and restrain some of the most egregious practices of the health insurance industry. It also forced more people to become customers of that industry. What the bill did not do is reform the health care system. Wendell Potter explains why not, and what went wrong., Wendell Potter, former vice president of corporate communications with insurance giant CIGNA, now a fellow with the spin-busting Center for Media and Democracy, used media appearances and testimony before Congressional committees to expose the dark manipulations of fact that insurance firms use to preserve for-profit healthcare. Then he put it all on paper with a terrific book, Eloquent... a tour de force.... Despite the damning revelations throughout his book, Mr. Potter's indictments of the industry he once served are far from heavy-handed; instead, they are suffused with the kind of transcendent empathy one finds in those who have undergone profound personal transformations., You're the Daniel Ellsberg of corporate America. I mean, what that man did during Vietnam helped to end that war.... People should read this book. The whole book lays it right out there about how the health insurance companies had bamboozled this country and lied, just outright lied about things., Potter engaging weaves together industry secrets with his own ... transformation into a whistleblower who tried to beat back the spin that nearly killed Obamacare., Deadly Spin is a must-read for all who want to learn more about what [the health reform law] is and what it is not. It is a handbook for social change., Deadly Spin makes clear what reporters were--and are--up against as they try, and often fail, to make the complex pros and cons of health care reform clear to citizens, as big-money players misdirect and obfuscate. More important, it illuminates what citizens are upagainst as they try to figure it out., Wendell Potter transformed the national debate over health care when he stood up and told the truth about the health insurance industry. By breaking the insurance industry's code of silence and explaining to his fellow Americans how health insurance companies put profits ahead of patient care, Wendell showed extraordinary courage. The compelling story of Wendell's conversion from a health care executive to an outspoken reform advocate is essential reading for anyone trying to understand the American health care system., Potter engagingly weaves together industry secrets with his own moral struggle and transformation into a whistleblower who tried to beat back the spin that nearly killed Obamacare., Wendell Potter is a straight shooter--and he hits the bulls-eye here with an expose of corporate power that reveals why real health care reform didn't happen, can't happen, and won't happen until that power is contained., Potter's Deadly Spin is an eye-opening account of the backroom antics of industries that do harm. You won't look at issues the same way after you read this book. If you can understand how "spin" works, you will be able to understand the money and tactics used to distort the truth. And we need to know the power propaganda has on us all.
