[kaiserthrive.org's editor's note: We love birthday parties -- especially our own -- but even so we were taught to be humble on these occasions, and that it would be less than polite to toot our own horn. Not so George Halvorson, who appears to revel in insulting Kaiser Permanente victims by refusing to address [...]

[kaiserthrive.org's editor's note: Kaiser Hawaii is technically part of Kaiser California, so the statement that "Kaiser does not report numbers for California alone" is very telling. Since the Hawaii region had a net loss of $3.2 million so far this year, this means the California region made up for that deficit and still raked in [...]

[...] After six years of investigating and documenting the heinous medical crime committed against her by a Kaiser surgeon ? and related Medicare fraud ? Kaiser victim Jupirena Stein is challenging George Halvorson to put his money where his mouth is. For the last few months George has been squawking to anyone who will listen about fake health care reform, but the one question he pointedly refuses to answer is the one most relevant to Kaiser members and its victims, past and future: How dare you hold yourself up as an expert in health health care reform when you can?t even reform your own murdering organization? Please George, tell us, we would really like to know. [...]

From SignOnSanDiego.com:
$903,000 awarded to councilman’s widow
By Cheryl Clark
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
SAN DIEGO — The late San Diego Councilman Charles Lewis was never told by his longtime Kaiser physician Willie Thigpen that he had a serious liver disease and that drinking alcohol would hasten his death, an arbitration judge has ruled.
The judge, Kevin Midlam, awarded $903,000 to [...]

[kaiserthrive.org editor's note: Yeah, everyone is 'Thrive'-ing at Kaiser Permanente...unless you need a kidney transplant, or have pneumonia, or cancer, or a past due pregnancy, or a consumer complaint, or need a prescription, or, or, or...
Thrive has been so "successful" that nationally Kaiser membership has remained mostly flat since the campaign began, and the Hawaii [...]

[kaiserthrive.org editor's note: Our apologies for not posting this sooner, but due to recent personal obligations it has been difficult to update as often as we would like to. Unfortunately I also don't have much time tonight for commentary, although this article and Kaiser's news release certainly scream out for more than a little [...]

From KTVU.com:
LOS ANGELES — A surgeon with close ties to the Bay Area was charged Monday with prescribing excessive drugs to a comatose, disabled patient to hasten his death and harvest his organs for transplantation.
It’s the first such criminal case against a transplant doctor in the United States, the San Luis Obispo County district attorney’s [...]

[kaiserthrive.org's editor's note: Is this vindication for Kaiser critics, who have been making these claims for years only to be erroneously discredited, abused and marginalized by Kaiser management and its less than ethical PR and legal departments? Feels a little like vindication, but in our experience these people seem to regret their horrendous actions quite a bit less than they do being caught.

We received an email from a Kaiser employee a few days ago, asking us if we would be willing to post some tangible steps that Kaiser could take to improve itself, as well as a score card listing some of these steps and how Kaiser is doing with implementing them. Kaiser makes a point of pretending it doesn't respond to anything we do, even though we know for a fact that isn't true, but in the spirit of supporting what is best for Kaiser members, we are more than willing to report on positive steps in the right direction. We're still hoping to find even one Kaiser member or employee who has been treated fairly in a dispute, and as soon as that happens it will be our pleasure to report it here.]

From the L.A. Times:

State fines Kaiser again — The HMO’s second such penalty in a year targets its handling of patient complaints at nine hospitals. [...]

[kaiserthrive.org editor's note: This is far from an isolated incident. We hear from people on a regular basis who have been referred to Kaiser Behavioral Health because their doctor can't figure out what is wrong with them. It is ingrained in the Kaiser culture to blame the patient rather than question the competence of [...]

The Kaiser Papers has just posted a detailed declaration by whistleblower Dr. William Moores, in the case of past Kaiser San Francisco Medical Center Chief of Cardiovascular Surgery, Dr. Terry McEnany. This guy was so incompetent and dangerous he makes Jayant Patel look like Marcus Welby, MD.
This is one of the most egregious cover [...]