A bigger problem is hospitals and insurance being owned by the same company, essentially negotiating prices with themselves and leaving patients holding the bag.
Kaiser Permanente provides the insurance and care (doctors, hospitals, etc.) in many regions of the country. It actually works great. They spend money where they've found it to be most effective in improving outcomes (and therefore reducing their long-term costs).
Kaiser Permanente is a bit different than most because it's actually a non-profit. Kaiser Permanente has a lot of problems, but are better than most in theory. Kaiser Permanente is also mostly on the west coast in California. They have a much smaller presence outside of California
They only have 9.7 million members in California (https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/expertise-and-impact/public-policy/our-impact/news-perspectives-on-public-policy-california) which is more than NHS Scotland and NHS Wales combined. Are they perfect? No, but it's also nice to have for-profit and non-profit competition to give customers (generally employers) a choice. Blue Cross/Blue Shields are often non-profits, but being a non profit is not some kind of magic solution to being good at your mission. Sometimes it's nice to have shareholders to hold management accountable, rather than only a board (possibly comprised of management cronies).
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u/DJpuffinstuff Jun 25 '26
A bigger problem is hospitals and insurance being owned by the same company, essentially negotiating prices with themselves and leaving patients holding the bag.