(STAT News) – Decades ago, the health insurance business put in place a dike to hide and contain the public’s disdain for for-profit health insurers, and to keep reformers at bay. Now, that dike might collapse.

As the former VP of corporate communications at Cigna, I played a role in building and fortifying that dike. Every year, my colleagues and I across the industry devoted massive amounts of the money — money our customers paid us to cover their medical care — on lobbying, campaign contributions, deceptive PR campaigns, and even charitable donations to buy goodwill. All of that was spent for the sole purpose of maximizing shareholder return. Restricting patients’ access to needed care made UnitedHealth, Cigna and a handful of other big insurers Wall Street darlings, and made lots of people lots of money while doing little to enhance care. (Read More)