Wendell Potter

Former employer: CIGNA

Wendell Potter, former vice-president of corporate communications for CIGNA, one of the largest medical underwriters in the U.S., rose to national attention after witnessing the desperation at a free medical clinic in Virginia. After seeing thousands waiting in line to have even the most basic procedures carried out in the open air, Potter resigned from his post in 2008 and became an active voice on health care reform, appearing before several special committees to blast the medical insurance industry, which he intimated cared only for profit and not its customers. It's inaccurate to peg recent changes to U.S. health care on one person, but Potter's advocacy, as well as his 2010 book, long-windedly called Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans, nonetheless came about around the time that President Barack Obama signed his massive health care reform statute into law.

* Bing: What countries have universal health care?