Stanford Center for Internet and Society

Don Dodson and I went to high school together. And like all high schoolers, we pretty much resembled each other during the years we shared wandering the halls at our alma mater, the Greenhill School in Dallas, Texas. Much like the rest of the world, thanks to facebook we've recently reconnected. Interestingly enough we've chosen different paths for our lives in the intervening 20 (!) years. I am a secular humanist Democrat, living in the Bay area, working at an internet company resolving disputes -- and Don describes himself (on his blog) as "a follower of Christ first, a husband and dad second, a software engineer who designs algorithms for the new F-35 fighter, and of course a proud Reagan conservative."

As some of you may know, last week many thousands of people chose to make the following statement their Facebook status: "No one should die because they can't afford health care, or go broke because they get sick. If you agree, post this as your status today." I saw the statuses going up on many of my friends' accounts and decided to put it up as my status as well. Don saw my status and responded, pushing for further clarification.

I made a lot of people in the Linux community unhappy when I wrote in CIO Insight ( "Battle over Linux: When a Win May Not Be a Win," Sept., 2007 ) that the decision by federal judge Dale Kimball to grant partial summary judgment to Novell on SCO's claims of ownership of key UNIX copyrights ha

When is a comic book worth $3,600,000 more than its face value? Answer: When Walt Disney wants to buy it.

Kristof in the NYT today: "Opponents suggest that a “government takeover” of health care will be a milestone on the road to “socialized medicine,” and when he hears those terms, Wendell Potter cringes. He’s embarrassed that opponents are using a playbook that he helped devise.

“Over the years I helped craft this messaging and deliver it,” he noted.

Mr. Potter was an executive in the health insurance industry for nearly 20 years before his conscience got the better of him. He served as head of corporate communications for Humana and then for Cigna.

He flew in corporate jets to industry meetings to plan how to block health reform, he says. He rode in limousines to confabs to concoct messaging to scare the public about reform. But in his heart, he began to have doubts as the business model for insurance evolved in recent years from spreading risk to dumping the risky.

Then in 2007 Mr. Potter attended a premiere of “Sicko,” Michael Moore’s excoriating film about the American health care system. Mr. Potter was taking notes so that he could prepare a propaganda counterblast — but he found himself agreeing with a great deal of the film.

A month later, Mr. Potter was back home in Tennessee, visiting his parents, and dropped in on a three-day charity program at a county fairgrounds to provide medical care for patients who could not afford doctors. Long lines of people were waiting in the rain, and patients were being examined and treated in public in stalls intended for livestock.

“It was a life-changing event to witness that,” he remembered. Increasingly, he found himself despising himself for helping block health reforms. “It sounds hokey, but I would look in the mirror and think, how did I get into this?”

Mr. Potter loved his office, his executive salary, his bonus, his stock options. “How can I walk away from a job that pays me so well?” he wondered. But at the age of 56, he announced his retirement and left Cigna last year.

This year, he went public with his concerns, testifying before a Senate committee investigating the insurance industry.

“I knew that once I did that my life would be different,” he said. “I wouldn’t be getting any more calls from recruiters for the health industry. It was the scariest thing I have done in my life. But it was the right thing to do.”