Guardian UK: Whistleblower tells of America's hidden nightmare for its sick poor

[marmar]

Whistleblower tells of America's hidden nightmare for its sick poor
When an insurance firm boss saw a field hospital for the poor in Virginia, he knew he had to speak out. Here, he tells Paul Harris of his fears for Obama's bid to bring about radical change

Paul Harris
The Observer, Sunday 26 July 2009


Wendell Potter can remember exactly when he took the first steps on his journey to becoming a whistleblower and turning against one of the most powerful industries in America.

It was July 2007 and Potter, a senior executive at giant US healthcare firm Cigna, was visiting relatives in the poverty-ridden mountain districts of northeast Tennessee. He saw an advert in a local paper for a touring free medical clinic at a fairground just across the state border in Wise County, Virginia.

Potter, who had worked at Cigna for 15 years, decided to check it out. What he saw appalled him. Hundreds of desperate people, most without any medical insurance, descended on the clinic from out of the hills. People queued in long lines to have the most basic medical procedures carried out free of charge. Some had driven more than 200 miles from Georgia. Many were treated in the open air. Potter took pictures of patients lying on trolleys on rain-soaked pavements.

For Potter it was a dreadful realisation that healthcare in America had failed millions of poor, sick people and that he, and the industry he worked for, did not care about the human cost of their relentless search for profits. "It was over-powering. It was just more than I could possibly have imagined could be happening in America," he told the Observer. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/26/us-healthcare-obama-barack-change

[burning rain]

1. Stark & harrowing.

Appalachian poverty doesn't get nearly enough attention; even self-described liberals largely ignore it.

[peacetalksforall]

2. free-associating - thoughts go to Dorothea Lange and others who photographed the Depression.

No one has decided what this will be called, but there is one thing very different from the Depression. Fat. Extra weight. Comparatively, we have probable hit an equivalent low parallel to the Depression for an probable equivalent volume of people (?),

Between the Depression and today, we had an FDA that also sold out to corporations - we aren't getting sufficient guidance. Corporations before the little people. Who warned against the corn syrup in all the food - if that is one of the major causes. And during the depressions they didn't have fast fat food (with just enough addictive fat and msg) on every other corner of a main drag.

I've looked at a lot of Depression photographs. I can't think of photos from the Depression that have medical relief gatherings as we are having (thanks to the pure soulds of the volunteers). No photos of the Depression stand out that would compare to what has been described to us and testified to by Potter and others. Imagine, being sick and having to travel long distances for free care. Only in America?

Then, the thoughts go back to Katrina with the ultimate insult of lack of attention and aid - dead, bloated bodies floating and not picked up by President Cheney and Bush. Being held prisoner on a bridge. Being shot in the head by Blackwater agents and 'others'. Living in sports palaces with a foot or less of space around you. Ice melting as the trucks traveled around the country with the load getting lighter by the mile and the highways got sprinkled.

We're in pretty good humor in spite of it. I guess the unwanted in the Depression also found good humor, but the photos show something else.

But today, the ceo's and medical industry employees did very well financially. No bailouts needed. And the insurance and hospital employees and sometimes the nurses get to quote 'NO, NO, NO' - not covered over and over or I believe you have what the insurance company is going to call a pre-existing condition. Sorry to hear that the hospital bill costs more than your house.

Thanks to the doctors, nurses, and employees who do care.

How much admiration should we hold for our system and leaders and ceo's and boards of directors and wall street and stockholders - but especially our leaders.

[peacetalksforall]

3. I notice that it is the Guardian in the UK that is bringing us this news about our country - again.