It left me feeling a little sick, but the July 10 Bill Moyers’ interview with former Cigna corp executive Wendell Potter is the most extraordinary indictment of the health care industry’s attempt to snuff out reform I’ve seen.

Among other things, Potter discusses how he and other industry insiders worked to “neutralize” Michael Moore in advance of his documentary “Sicko” by telling Democratic Party leaders that embracing the film’s message “is a one-way ticket back to minority party status.”

BILL MOYERS: Now, that’s exactly what they did, didn’t they? They–

WENDELL POTTER: Absolutely.

BILL MOYERS: –radicalized Moore, so that his message was discredited because the messenger was seen to be radical.

WENDELL POTTER: Absolutely. In memos that would go back within the industry — he was never, by the way, mentioned by name in any memos, because we didn’t want to inadvertently write something that would wind up in his hands. So the memos would usually– the subject line would be– the emails would be, “Hollywood.” And as we would do the media training, we would always have someone refer to him as Hollywood entertainer or Hollywood moviemaker Michael Moore.

BILL MOYERS: Why?

WENDELL POTTER: Well, just to– Hollywood, I think people think that’s entertainment, that’s movie-making. That’s not real documentary. They don’t want you to think that it was a documentary that had some truth. They would want you to see this as just some fantasy that a Hollywood filmmaker had come up with. That’s part of the strategy.

BILL MOYERS: So you would actually hear politicians mouth the talking points that had been circulated by the industry to discredit Michael Moore.

WENDELL POTTER: Absolutely.

BILL MOYERS: You’d hear ordinary people talking that. And politicians as well, right?

WENDELL POTTER: Absolutely.

BILL MOYERS: So your plan worked.

WENDELL POTTER: It worked beautifully.

BILL MOYERS: The film was blunted, right?

WENDELL POTTER: The film was blunted. It–

BILL MOYERS: Was it true? Did you think it contained a great truth?

WENDELL POTTER: Absolutely did.

BILL MOYERS: What was it?

WENDELL POTTER: That we shouldn’t fear government involvement in our health care system.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 21st, 2009 at 5:25 pm and is filed under News, Politics, Screwed, flog recommends, health care, lawmaker hijinx. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.