Deadly Spin
by Wendell Potter
A book review by R. Z. Halleson
So many people in the United States feel stunned, helpless, and victimized by large American systems that have gone wrong. We trusted in democracy and in free markets that have minimal regulation; But over time, people built businesses that grew into corporations that became part of whole industries that had as their major goal to please their shareholders by making profit regardless of the cost to the customers that they purportedly served.
Wendell Potter, in his excellent and very readable book, Deadly Spin takes us inside one of these huge industries and shows us how it evolved, how it solidified its position, and how it hoodwinks the American people in its efforts to keep itself alive and make more and more money for itself.
The health insurance industry is complex, but not so complex that it cannot be understood by ordinary Americans. Our decentralized method of governance, as much as we have come to value it as a cornerstone of our democracy, has contributed to the rise of a monopoly of for-profit health insurance corporations that do not serve the American people.
Potter gives us a picture of the uninsured, the under-insured, the medically uninsurable, and the non-elderly poor, and why it is so difficult for them to get coverage from for-profit insurance companies. Basically, it's because these people cost too much. I once worked for a nonprofit corporation that suddenly lost its healthcare insurance provider because the provider claimed that this nonprofit had too many women employees over age fifty-five that would be a drain on the insurance company's profits. The medical-loss ratio was too high.
Reforming health care in the United States to provide accessible insurance for all Americans is such a threat to the insurance industry that it has devised all sorts of dirty tricks to defeat any attempt in congress to pass meaningful legislation. The sad reality is that the insurance industry seems to be winning.
One of their methods is to hire large public relations firms to create deceptive messages to distribute to the public. These include developing close relations with reporters, editors, and publishers to place their messages through articles, op-ed pieces, and letters to the editor. They will feed talking points to television pundits and talk show hosts.
Setting up front groups that sound legitimate and recruiting third parties to list as members of these groups is another much-used tactic. Often the titles of these groups or coalitions will contain words such as "American", "freedom", "family", or "choice" to fool unsuspecting people into believing that these groups have their best interests at heart.
Conducting bogus surveys and misleading the public with skewed statistics is common.
Perhaps the most effective method is what Potter calls the "charm" campaign where any given insurance company is depicted by its PR agency as part of the solution to the problem rather than the problem itself.
In his book Deadly Spin, Wendell Potter names names, and gives examples of actual cases of insurance companies' egregrious behavior. He doesn't stop there. He also talks about Big Oil, Big Soda, and Big Banks, and the commonalities that their spin has with the insurance companies.
You will want to read this book so that you will no longer be fooled. You CAN understand the situation that we find our country in, and by understanding, you can help to be part of the solution for yourself, for your fellow Americans, and for this great nation of ours. Wendell Potter shows us how.