Renewable Revolution

November 9, 2019 9:53 AM


Health care is hard.

Democrats spent 100 years trying and failing to reform our broken, profit-driven health care system before enacting the Affordable Care Act in 2009. Hillary Clinton was at the forefront of one such attempt in 1993, and now she’s back in the news, warning Democrats that Medicare for All is the right goal, but “unrealistic.”

I appreciate Secretary Clinton’s assessment of the power of the insurance industry. But as a former industry spinmeister―and one who played a role in killing her reform plan―let me tell you why I now disagree:

I worked at 😈 Humana in the 90s when Hillary led the Clinton administration’s attempt to create a more equitable and rational health care system. As a 🐍 PR flack, I worked with other health insurance industry executives to craft what are now their greatest hits—like dubbing “Medicare for All,” “government-run health care.”


Our campaign on behalf of corporate insurers worked: Public opinion that had been rising in support of sweeping reform dropped like a rock. 

Fast forward 25 years and the industry play now is the same as it was then, and the same as they ran against the Affordable Care Act. Why, then, should Clinton expect to feel any differently about passage of single payer?


► A majority of Americans who receive health insurance through their employer now say they support a switch to Medicare For All.

► A majority of small business owners support Medicare For All. (Most small employers can no longer offer health insurance because it’s too expensive. It’s not because they don’t want to, it’s because they can’t afford to offer coverage to their employees.)

► The number of Americans receiving health insurance through an employer is falling—55%, down from closer to 70% just a few years ago.

► And those who do get coverage through an employer increasingly find it too expensive. The average family insurance plan now costs more than $20,500 annually.

► And furthermore, those people find their health plan too expensive to use. While 30 million of us are uninsured despite the ACA, more than twice that many are now “underinsured”—meaning their deductibles and copays are so high they can’t afford to go to a doctor or hospital if they need to or even pick up their prescriptions.

► A majority of Americans support Medicare For All even after it has been attacked. Simply remind people their out-of-pocket costs, premiums and deductibles will go away—and they’re all for it.

► Finally, (and this is harder to track) we didn’t have politicians like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren 10 and 25 years ago with the power those two have now. Their social media followings, their email lists, the media they draw—it all contributes to getting out the truth about the broken for-profit health insurance system the industry was able to lie about for years.

There’s now a chorus of voices, led by Senators Sanders and Warren, that are saying, “enough!” 

Wendell Potter
Medicare for All NOW!