Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Best of 2024 ezine!

Wendell Potter Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Author Biography  | Interview  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

Wendell Potter

Wendell Potter

Wendell Potter Biography

Wendell Potter is an author, former corporate public relations executive and, a journalist. He was a reporter in his home state of Tennessee back in the '70s, covering local and state politics – including the Tennessee statehouse – for The Memphis Press-Scimitar. He has also covered Congress, the White House and Supreme Court for Scripps-Howard newspapers. After a few years in DC he was enticed into PR and spent more than two decades in the health insurance industry, first at Humana and then at Cigna. He was serving as head of corporate communications for Cigna when he left after a crisis of conscience in 2008.

Since then he has written three books: Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR Is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans (a New York Times bestseller and winner of the Ridenhour Book Prize in 2011); Obamacare: What's In It for Me/What Everyone Needs to Know about the Affordable Care Act (an ebook); and Nation on the Take: How Big Money Corrupts Our Democracy and What We Can Do About It (published in March 2016). He has also written numerous commentaries and analysis pieces for a broad range of media outlets, including the Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, the Guardian, the Nation, and the Center for Public Integrity.

In July 2016, he launched a new nonprofit, To Be Fair, Inc., which will publish news and commentaries on money in politics, propaganda, health care and other topics.

Wendell Potter's website

This bio was last updated on 10/17/2016. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Interview

Former health insurance PR executive Wendell Potter exposes and speaks out against the devious policies and practices he once defended, and in a letter to readers provides helpful resources for those trying to navigate the American health care system.

This page includes both an interview with Wendell Potter (see video below) in which he speaks out against the current American health care system, and (below) a letter to readers in which he provides useful resources and advice for those seeking adequate care.

Former health insurance PR executive Wendell Potter exposes and speaks out against the devious policies and practices he once defended.





A letter from Wendell Potter on American health care reform and a list of useful references to help those seeking adequate care

Since I started speaking out about the abuses of the health insurance industry and explaining why Americans have put up with the most expensive and one of the most dysfunctional health care systems on the planet, countless people have asked me to intercede on their behalf with an insurance company that has refused to pay for care they need. Many others are among the 51 million Americans without coverage - or the 25 million who are underinsured. They've asked me if I can help them find decent coverage they can afford. Hundreds of people just want to know what they can do to make sure health care reform keeps going forward and how they can get involved in the fight for a more rational and ...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Books by this Author

Books by Wendell Potter at BookBrowse
Deadly Spin jacket
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for Wendell Potter but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

  • Ira Byock

    Ira Byock

    Ira Byock serves as Executive Director and Chief Medical Officer for the Institute for Human Caring of Providence Health and Services, a 35 hospital health system serving communities across 5 western states. Dr. Byock ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Deadly Spin

    Try:
    The Best Care Possible
    by Ira Byock

  • John Carreyrou

    John Carreyrou

    John Carreyrou is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter at The Wall Street Journal. For his extensive coverage of Theranos, Carreyrou was awarded the George Polk Award for Financial Reporting, the Gerald ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Deadly Spin

    Try:
    Bad Blood
    by John Carreyrou

We recommend 12 similar authors


Non-members can see 2 results. Become a member
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern
    The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern
    by Lynda Cohen Loigman
    Lynda Cohen Loigman's delightful novel The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern opens in 1987. The titular ...
  • Book Jacket: Small Rain
    Small Rain
    by Garth Greenwell
    At the beginning of Garth Greenwell's novel Small Rain, the protagonist, an unnamed poet in his ...
  • Book Jacket: Daughters of Shandong
    Daughters of Shandong
    by Eve J. Chung
    Daughters of Shandong is the debut novel of Eve J. Chung, a human rights lawyer living in New York. ...
  • Book Jacket: The Women
    The Women
    by Kristin Hannah
    Kristin Hannah's latest historical epic, The Women, is a story of how a war shaped a generation ...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
In Our Midst
by Nancy Jensen
In Our Midst follows a German immigrant family’s fight for freedom after their internment post–Pearl Harbor.
Who Said...

If there is anything more dangerous to the life of the mind than having no independent commitment to ideas...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Big Holiday Wordplay 2024

Enter Now

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.