A few words about Kaiser Permanente and eKaiser Insurance

Money can’t buy integrity, but it sure buys a lot of PRBS™, according to a recent review from Kotaku of Kaiser Permanente’s new video health game for kids, the Incredible Adventures of the Amazing Food Detective.

Kaiser Permanente’s Health Game Flatlines

Exactly how much member money KP has spent creating and promoting its thinly disguised infomercial is unknown, because when asked direct questions about such things, this not for profit public benefit corporation feels no obligation whatsoever to be forthcoming with the public it supposedly serves. What we do know is that health care expenditures in the United States have reached $2 trillion per year, and are continually rising. When I’m writing that $1,000 monthly premium check to my health insurer on behalf of my small family, I want to know that as much of that money as possible is being applied to actual health care costs — and NOT to advertising and public relations.

When its name is Kaiser Permanente and it reports $2.5 billion in net profits in the first 9 months of 2007, that’s when.

Ironically, the IRS nearly tripled its audits of tax returns filed by middle class Americans in 2007, because they wouldn’t want anyone to get away with not paying their fair share of taxes.

God Bless America.

Kaiser Permanente surgeon Bruce Barker pleaded guilty to perjury last week. It has been suggested that a willingness to play fast and loose with the truth might be a desirable quality in a Kaiser doctor (for Kaiser the organization and its medical legal department, that is), but who are we to say? Maybe it’s only a coincidence that medical records end up missing in virtually every Kaiser case that makes it to arbitration.