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This Former U.S. Health Insurance Exec Says He And The Entire Industry Lied To Americans About Canadian Healthcare
If someone told you that Canada’s health system is an example of socialist failure, where wait times are outrageous and people swarm to the U.S. to get the healthcare they really need, they probably lied.
Wendell Potter spent two decades working in the health insurance industry. He knew it in and out. And he got sick of it. In 2008, Potter quit his job at Cigna as head of corporate communications and has been on a mission to revamp the healthcare system in the country ever since. Serving as a whistleblower and exposing behind-the-scenes corruption and manipulation in the dirty world of health insurance, he posted a thread on Twitter the previous week in which he explained how he had personally been a part of dishonoring Canada’s system so that Americans would think theirs was superior.
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Image credits: wendellpotter
“Health insurers in the U.S. are just as driven to make a profit as ever. As long as that is the case, we will not have a system most Americans can afford,” Potter told Bored Panda.
According to him, the insurance industry has erected barriers that make it increasingly difficult for people to get the care they need when they need it to avoid paying claims and to maximize profits.
This include:
- High deductible plans which most Americans have been forced into and which requires them to pay huge amounts of money out of their own pockets before their insurer will start paying for medical care;
- Requiring doctors to obtain approval in advance before proceeding with treatment and even before prescribing certain medications;
- Kicking many doctors, hospitals, and other facilities out of their provider networks;
- People who get care from out-of-network providers (often unknowingly) are usually on the hook to pay much if not all of the resulting bills.
Finally, for those interested in this gap between America and Canada on healthcare, I tried to spell it out a bit more in this video. Thank you for spreading this message. We need to break the U.S. free from the greed of the insurance industry. pic.twitter.com/pcSkyMj8ee
— Wendell Potter (@wendellpotter) June 26, 2020
Image credits: wendellpotter
“These barriers are largely unknown in other healthcare systems around the world,” Potter said.
He said that slandering Canada’s system has largely damaged Americans, who have been so misled by the misinformation that they have become fearful of proposals that would make the U.S. system more like Canada’s. “As a result, hundreds of thousands of people have died prematurely and unnecessarily over the years because of a lack of access to affordable and timely care.”
“The slander also undoubtedly has been useful to right-wing organizations in Canada, such as the Vancouver-based Fraser Institute which for years has tried to dismantle the Canadian system and privatize it,” Potter explained.
Potter said the industry continues spreading the same old lies. “They [still] use fresh cherry-picked data and anecdotes that cannot be verified but which many people are willing to believe, unfortunately,” he explained. “The biggest ongoing myth the industry continues to perpetuate is that Canadians wait endlessly for needed care. They obscure the truth that there are actually more doctors per 1,000 people in Canada than in the U.S., and Canadians see their doctors considerably more often than Americans do (6.8 times a year in Canada on average versus 4 times a year in the U.S.).”
Potter highlighted that the insurance industry enlists allies to spread lies and mislead people, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Federation of Independent Business, both of which Potter used to work with when he was in the insurance industry.
“Those organizations purport to represent American businesses, small businesses especially. Their opinions do not reflect the opinions of many U.S. business leaders. I encourage people to be skeptical of anything those organizations say.”
To learn more about what the US healthcare system is and what it could be, check out Business Leaders for Health Care Transformation, an organization Potter leads that represents businesses of all sizes and types that worry about how rising healthcare costs will impact their business and their workforce. Or follow him on Twitter @wendellpotter.
Here’s what people said after reading Potter’s thread
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Understanding the deep-rooted challenges within the health insurance industry can shed light on why many Americans face such difficulties in obtaining affordable care.
For further insight into the internal workings and profit-driven motives of insurance companies, you may find valuable perspectives in this detailed examination of executive whistleblowing: inside the health insurance industry.
What do you think ?
LOttawa 5 years ago
Yes we pay higher taxes for our health care but it's still not has much as some of those monthly insurance payments I have seen some people pay and we don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars hanging over our heads. I much prefer paying a few hundreds dollar a year (which I don't see since it's taken off my pay cheque every two weeks). Also, if you have health care insurance thru your employer (for prescriptions and things like that), you pay less taxes (at least in my province).
Aunt Messy 5 years ago
We live in the States. Our health insurance for two retired people would be well over $2000.00 a MONTH. That's for two healthy people who are minimal meds. If we moved to BC.....as of January 1, NO ONE pays health insurance premiums.
Load More Replies...
Felicia Dale 5 years ago
Well, yes, but their complaints were relatively minor and mainly involved long wait times for elective procedures that weren't life threatening. Compared to the US, that's nothing.
Load More Replies...
Bron 5 years ago
Australia is similar to Canada, except there’s no such thing as insurance through employers. If we want, and can afford to, we can buy private health insurance. Sometimes it covers all costs, sometimes not. Yes, I do pay through my taxes but so what? Even though I hardly ever go to the doctor (once in the past 10 years), I’d rather contribute to the health and well-being of even the conservatives than contribute to the disgusting salaries of insurance executives etc.
deanna woods 5 years ago
I am an American with lots of health problems and no health insurance. It is very difficult for me to go to the doctor or even the emergency room. I have had an abscessed tooth and instead of getting a root canal and saving the tooth, I am getting it pulled because that is much cheaper. I have anxiety and depression and if it weren't for a local mental health program, I wouldn't be able to get my medications. I understand that not every health care system is perfect, but at least some of these other countries try to do right by all their citizens. All American health insurance carriers seem to do is lie about how great their coverage is.
Becca Gizmo the Squirrel 5 years ago
Yeah I owe probably around $8000 just from ER bills from before I had insurance. Now I'm on medicaid because my husband is disabled but I still have to pay $180 a month to see my doctor. The whole insurance/no insurance situation in America is ridiculous. We should be more like Canada. In a lot of ways.
Laura Maeflower 5 years ago
Wait...you have to pay to see a doctor? Like, even if nothing is wrong with you?
Load More Replies...
Parmeisan 5 years ago
I am alive today because of the Canadian health care system. If I lived in the states and knew I'd have to pay $300 for a visit to the ER (a quick google search puts the average at $1,389, but even if I knew it would be much less), I would have told myself that funny feeling was probably nothing, there wasn't even any pain, I was fine. And then I would have died from the pulmonary embolism that it actually was.
Parmeisan 5 years ago (edited)
I have had a lot of health issues in my life. I've been on blood thinners and getting blood tests every week. I've been sent to so many different specialists for so many different tests. Sometimes I wait 2 or 3 months, sometimes I wait closer to a year. I've also been to the ER a number of times, where they let you in immediately for some symptoms and you wait up to 8 hours for others. In both cases, you're probably in for 12 hours of waiting between nurses coming in and asking questions, having blood or urine tests done, doctors coming in and asking more questions, special tests being ordered, etc etc. But they have always taken good care of me, been prompt when urgency is called for, never hesitated to call for tests or other procedures (e.g. dialysis), never made me question the overall competency of my carers (although I *have* had call to question the competency of certain individual doctors), and the most I've ever paid was for medication which is not always covered.
Load More Replies... Electric Ed 5 years ago
"pre-existing clause/condition" - wait what does that mean? Its written so it sounds like the health insurance deny paying for the treatment? Someone from the USA pleas explain.
MrTree1779 5 years ago
"Pre-existing condition" is a term used by medical insurance companies to avoid paying the bills, and a way for them to force the patient to pay them. It assumes that the patient has a condition which will require more medical care. If the medical insurance company were to be responsible for the costs, they would pay more. So, to pay as little as possible, the medical insurance company says that they will not be responsible for many illnesses which Americans have, and refuse to pay for those illnesses. It is a way for our medical insurance companies to be greedy and cruel, and win in court.
Load More Replies...
Kevin Hickey 5 years ago
Medicare for All will cost $30 Trillion over the next ten years!! That's always the headline. They never tell you that under our current system we'll be paying a lot more than that over the next ten years.
Weishaar Jamie 5 years ago
Health care is not, and never was, suppose to be a business or about making money. America is SO greedy. Nothing gets done without it profiting someone. There are cures for cancers (and other diseases) but, far too much money is made by those in control of current treatments. As things are, we will never be healthy. There's too much money is making and keeping is sick! I will never understand how those people who profit from illness and death can live with themselves. It WILL come back to them. No system is perfect but, at least some other countries put people over profit.
Mascha Claessens 5 years ago (edited)
This is a problem in many countries (though the US might be one of the worst, definitely). I'm pretty sure healthcare is much better where I live (mandatory health insurance, really lowering financial risks for people who get/are ill and/or in an accident), but there are still too many people profiting off health care, unfortunately: insurance companies, hospital boards, big pharma, etc...
Load More Replies... LOttawa 5 years ago
Yes we pay higher taxes for our health care but it's still not has much as some of those monthly insurance payments I have seen some people pay and we don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars hanging over our heads. I much prefer paying a few hundreds dollar a year (which I don't see since it's taken off my pay cheque every two weeks). Also, if you have health care insurance thru your employer (for prescriptions and things like that), you pay less taxes (at least in my province).
Aunt Messy 5 years ago
We live in the States. Our health insurance for two retired people would be well over $2000.00 a MONTH. That's for two healthy people who are minimal meds. If we moved to BC.....as of January 1, NO ONE pays health insurance premiums.
Load More Replies... Felicia Dale 5 years ago
Well, yes, but their complaints were relatively minor and mainly involved long wait times for elective procedures that weren't life threatening. Compared to the US, that's nothing.
Load More Replies... Bron 5 years ago
Australia is similar to Canada, except there’s no such thing as insurance through employers. If we want, and can afford to, we can buy private health insurance. Sometimes it covers all costs, sometimes not. Yes, I do pay through my taxes but so what? Even though I hardly ever go to the doctor (once in the past 10 years), I’d rather contribute to the health and well-being of even the conservatives than contribute to the disgusting salaries of insurance executives etc.
deanna woods 5 years ago
I am an American with lots of health problems and no health insurance. It is very difficult for me to go to the doctor or even the emergency room. I have had an abscessed tooth and instead of getting a root canal and saving the tooth, I am getting it pulled because that is much cheaper. I have anxiety and depression and if it weren't for a local mental health program, I wouldn't be able to get my medications. I understand that not every health care system is perfect, but at least some of these other countries try to do right by all their citizens. All American health insurance carriers seem to do is lie about how great their coverage is.
Becca Gizmo the Squirrel 5 years ago
Yeah I owe probably around $8000 just from ER bills from before I had insurance. Now I'm on medicaid because my husband is disabled but I still have to pay $180 a month to see my doctor. The whole insurance/no insurance situation in America is ridiculous. We should be more like Canada. In a lot of ways.
Laura Maeflower 5 years ago
Wait...you have to pay to see a doctor? Like, even if nothing is wrong with you?
Load More Replies... Parmeisan 5 years ago
I am alive today because of the Canadian health care system. If I lived in the states and knew I'd have to pay $300 for a visit to the ER (a quick google search puts the average at $1,389, but even if I knew it would be much less), I would have told myself that funny feeling was probably nothing, there wasn't even any pain, I was fine. And then I would have died from the pulmonary embolism that it actually was.
Parmeisan 5 years ago (edited)
I have had a lot of health issues in my life. I've been on blood thinners and getting blood tests every week. I've been sent to so many different specialists for so many different tests. Sometimes I wait 2 or 3 months, sometimes I wait closer to a year. I've also been to the ER a number of times, where they let you in immediately for some symptoms and you wait up to 8 hours for others. In both cases, you're probably in for 12 hours of waiting between nurses coming in and asking questions, having blood or urine tests done, doctors coming in and asking more questions, special tests being ordered, etc etc. But they have always taken good care of me, been prompt when urgency is called for, never hesitated to call for tests or other procedures (e.g. dialysis), never made me question the overall competency of my carers (although I *have* had call to question the competency of certain individual doctors), and the most I've ever paid was for medication which is not always covered.
Load More Replies... Electric Ed 5 years ago
"pre-existing clause/condition" - wait what does that mean? Its written so it sounds like the health insurance deny paying for the treatment? Someone from the USA pleas explain.
MrTree1779 5 years ago
"Pre-existing condition" is a term used by medical insurance companies to avoid paying the bills, and a way for them to force the patient to pay them. It assumes that the patient has a condition which will require more medical care. If the medical insurance company were to be responsible for the costs, they would pay more. So, to pay as little as possible, the medical insurance company says that they will not be responsible for many illnesses which Americans have, and refuse to pay for those illnesses. It is a way for our medical insurance companies to be greedy and cruel, and win in court.
Load More Replies... Kevin Hickey 5 years ago
Medicare for All will cost $30 Trillion over the next ten years!! That's always the headline. They never tell you that under our current system we'll be paying a lot more than that over the next ten years.
Weishaar Jamie 5 years ago
Health care is not, and never was, suppose to be a business or about making money. America is SO greedy. Nothing gets done without it profiting someone. There are cures for cancers (and other diseases) but, far too much money is made by those in control of current treatments. As things are, we will never be healthy. There's too much money is making and keeping is sick! I will never understand how those people who profit from illness and death can live with themselves. It WILL come back to them. No system is perfect but, at least some other countries put people over profit.
Mascha Claessens 5 years ago (edited)
This is a problem in many countries (though the US might be one of the worst, definitely). I'm pretty sure healthcare is much better where I live (mandatory health insurance, really lowering financial risks for people who get/are ill and/or in an accident), but there are still too many people profiting off health care, unfortunately: insurance companies, hospital boards, big pharma, etc...
Load More Replies...
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