Press Releases / News
For Immediate Release: June 24, 2009
Contact: Edward L. Chester
202-944-2858
CJF Press Room
The Civil Justice Foundation Announces
Wendell Potter As A Community Champion Recipient
(Washington, DC)— Each year, at its Breakfast of Champions during the AAJ (Formerly ATLA) summer convention, the Civil Justice Foundation honors one or more Community Champions. Community Champions are consumer advocates who have performed outstanding work on behalf of injured consumers, to prevent injury, and/or to preserve a consumer's access to justice.
After a 20-year career as a corporate public relations executive, Wendell last year left his job as head of communications for one of the nation’s largest health insurers to try his hand at helping socially responsible organizations—including those advocating for meaningful health care reform—achieve their goals. Based in Philadelphia, Wendell now provides strategic communications counsel and planning services as an independent consultant. As senior fellow on health care for the Center for Media and Democracy, he also writes and speaks out on both the need for a fundamental overhaul of the American health care system and on the dangers to American democracy and society of the decline of the media as watchdog, which has contributed to the growing and increasingly unchecked influence of corporate PR.
Today, June 24, 2009, Wendell spoke to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, at a hearing on Consumer Choices & Transparency in Health Insurance Industry. Wendell spoke along with Nancy Metcalf – Senior Program Editor of consumer reports, and Karen Pollitz – Project Director, Health Policy Institute at Georgetown University, to Senator Rockefeller and the Committee about the necessary adjustments that must be made to the for-profit health care insurance in America. Wendell stated that the insurance companies use a “. . . charm offensive . . . benefits Wall Street more than average Americans.
Wendell has spoken out against an industry, the insurance industry, which is taking advantage of the current situation and is fighting for the appropriate reform, in order to help all Americans. For this reason and many more Wendell Potter will be receiving the Civil Justice Foundation’s Community Champion Award this July in San Francisco, California.
As the only national foundation devoted solely to protecting the individual rights, health, and well-being of the injured, the Civil Justice Foundation provides small but significant grants to the tireless organizations fighting for injury prevention and justice preservation across the country.
