Potter formerly was Cigna's head flack. He says he quit when he could no longer stomach his job as an apologist-propagandist for a business that valued profits over its customers' well-being. His book is a decent read: "Deadly spin : an insurance company insider speaks out on how corporate PR is killing health care and deceiving Americans."

The opening statement, “Many health insurance companies used to thumb their nose at Medicare patients...” is nonsense as is the rest of this post and everything I have ever read by Wendell Potter. Health insurance companies have been totally involved in Medicare since its creation in 1965. Per the Medicare law, the government had to use health insurance companies to run Medicare. At the time there were two Parts, A and B. At the time, about 35 healthcare insurance companies were involved in running Medicare and all of them also sold separate private insurance (now called Medigap). In addition, a large group of insurance companies administered and still administer group retiree insurance, the most popular form of supplementing Medicare (Original Parts A and B of Medicare have to be supplemented because they are such terrible insurance). Today there are only about a dozen healthcare insurance companies that administer Parts A and B (because a 1990s Congress legislated consolidation to save money) but many more still sell private Medigap and administer private retiree plans. All the same companies also have been administering public Part C health plans since the law was signed by President Clinton in 1997. In addition, plans similar to Part C plans – including but not limited to Medicare Advantage plans – have existed since the 1970s under Medicare demonstration status. According to government reports, for the work administering Medicare Parts A, B and C (and later D) the insurers make about a 5% margin now matter which public Medicare Parts they choose to be involved with. Likely the private Medigap and group retiree business is more lucrative and it still dominates the Medicare market. Medicare Advantage is an important revenue stream for all the insurance companies who service the Medicare market via its four public Parts and via private Medigap and retiree plans because in many – but not all – cases public Medicare Advantage is the best insurance choice cost wise and medically of the three main options to supplementing Original Medicare. Because of this, Part C health plans which began with a 2% share of the market in 1997 (it started above 0% because of its demonstration status) now have about a 33% share of the market, Medicare Advantage is an important revenue stream because that’s what Medicare beneficiaries want. But according to Wendell Potter it is because 17,000,000 people are stupid (kind of explains why he is a former insurance executive, don’t you think?)