Who and what is Kaiser Permanente?

Kaiser Foundation Health Plan is a not-for-profit integrated prepaid health plan and HMO. Unlike most HMOs that contract with independent facilities and doctors, Kaiser owns and operates its own hospitals, and employs its own physicians through an exclusive contract with the for-profit Permanente Medical Groups. It is very important to understand how the three Kaiser entities work together, and how the money flows in order to fully appreciate why I have volunteered for this campaign.

A good source of information about Kaiser Permanente’s history and organizational structure is here.

More to come…