Kaiser
(I'm not on X so this is from my email)
"At a time when health care professionals are burnt out after the pandemic and there are severe staffing shortages in the profession, now is the time to provide better pay and working conditions in order to attract more health care professionals into the field and retain those who are already there.
That would result in better health care outcomes for everyone.
A win-win.
But that would impact Kaiser’s bottom line, and therein lies the rub. After all, the business establishment in this country is really not particularly concerned about the well-being of their workers or the quality of health care outcomes.
They are, however, deeply concerned about profit margins, stockholder dividends and CEO compensation.
And the question we should be asking is: how is it that Kaiser – which just reported $2.1 billion in net income during the second quarter of 2023 alone – cannot afford to pay their employees better wages?
How is it that Kaiser – which pays its CEO more than $15 million and gave its former CEO a retirement package of $35 million – can't afford better staffing ratios to improve worker well-being and patient care? "
~Senator Bernie Sanders
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/not_me_us?akid=9839.1935568.f_0pl_&rd=1&refcode=em_logo&refcode2=9839_1935568_f_0pl_&t=1
= new reply since forum marked as read
And employee for almost ten years. I also used to be an EMT and have seen many healthcare systems, which is one reason I tried for years to get on with Kaiser. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. Still, it's better than most I have experienced. We are working on making it better in spite of management. Good luck to you.
HMOs are not for everyone.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/08/upshot/medicare-advantage-fraud-allegations.html
https://archive.ph/ME5pN
The health system Kaiser Permanente called doctors in during lunch and after work and urged them to add additional illnesses to the medical records of patients they hadn’t seen in weeks. Doctors who found enough new diagnoses could earn bottles of Champagne, or a bonus in their paycheck.
Anthem, a large insurer now called Elevance Health, paid more to doctors who said their patients were sicker. And executives at UnitedHealth Group, the country’s largest insurer, told their workers to mine old medical records for more illnesses — and when they couldn’t find enough, sent them back to try again.
Each of the strategies — which were described by the Justice Department in lawsuits against the companies — led to diagnoses of serious diseases that might have never existed. But the diagnoses had a lucrative side effect: They let the insurers collect more money from the federal government’s Medicare Advantage program.
Medicare Advantage, a private-sector alternative to traditional Medicare, was designed by Congress two decades ago to encourage health insurers to find innovative ways to provide better care at lower cost. If trends hold, by next year, more than half of Medicare recipients will be in a private plan.
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Response to justaprogressive (Original post)
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