Listen stupid, why go with Blue Cross when you can get in bed with these idiots. Just kidding, you'll not be getting in their beds because they're closed for business.
Kaiser Permanente’s Single-Payer Portent
The largest healthcare strike in U.S. history strands sick patients.
By The Editorial Board, WSJ
Oct. 5, 2023
Kaiser Permanente is often hailed on the political left as a model for single-payer healthcare in the U.S. Like their unionized brethren at Britain’s National Health Service, some 75,000 Kaiser workers this week walked off the job and stranded sick patients.
Kaiser is America’s largest managed integrated health system, whereby the same entity pays for and provides medical care. Patients with Kaiser insurance are treated by doctors and nurses employed by Kaiser at facilities operated by Kaiser. The consortium serves nearly 13 million patients nationwide, mostly on the West Coast.
Its managed-care system has been hailed as less expensive than standard private insurance. Kaiser controls spending in part by restricting patient access to outside providers and typically requiring primary-care physicians to authorize specialty care. The flip side is that sick patients may have to wait longer for treatment.
Its single-payer model has other adverse effects. Unions say it skimps on staff, resulting in lower-quality care. It’s not unusual for unions to complain about staffing levels since they want employers to hire more workers to boost their membership. But Kaiser’s model is intentionally lean.
Patients “are telling you how long it took to get the appointment, and then you have to tell them how long it will be to get results,” an ultrasound technician who has worked at Kaiser for 27 years told CBS News. “There’s a breakdown in the quality of care.”
U.S. hospitals are increasingly contracting out emergency care to staffing companies to meet patient ebbs and flows. But unions oppose this arrangement because it makes it harder to organize workers. Kaiser’s unions also don’t seem to like the alternative, which is to employ fewer workers and require them to pick up the slack when demand for care increases.
Kaiser’s strike is the largest by healthcare workers in U.S. history, and patients will suffer the most harm. “Non-urgent” operations and chemotherapy treatments this week were rescheduled, in some cases reportedly for months later. But because patients are locked into the system, the stakes are lower for both the union and company.
Kaiser has offered to increase wages by between 12.5% and 16% over four years, but the unions are demanding a 24.5% raise. Medicare payment cuts and the end of the national pandemic emergency will likely crimp its revenue. Other hospitals and physicians can bill private insurance more to offset government payment reductions, but Kaiser can’t.
Single-payer healthcare only works until the reality of rationing bites.
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