Insurance, Trust + the Free Market System

According to the IBM Institute for Business Value, “The insurance industry suffers from a general lack of trust — the ‘animosity issue.’” In fact, only 41% of U.S. customers agree with the statement that “insurance companies can be completely trusted.”

So, I was very interested when I saw a piece on Boing Boing on the “anti-universal-health-care” movement which ultimately led me to Bill Moyers’ interview of Wendell Potter on PBS. A former VP of public relations at Cigna, Potter was talking about the “dirty tricks” used by the insurance industry to fight universal healthcare.

“The [insurance] industry has always tried to make Americans think that government-run systems are the worst thing that could possibly happen to them, that if you even consider that, you're heading down on the slippery slope towards socialism,” Potter said. “We shouldn't fear government involvement in our health care system. There is an appropriate role for government.”

I say, let the free market compete — and if government comes in, they will compete, too.