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I moved to Maui 9 years ago with exceptionally good medical insurance. The problem was a doctor shortage. For years, the best I could do was a physician's assistant, and now I'm on Medicare.
After a couple of substandard medical providers, I reluctantly decided to try Kaiser. It is the most expensive Medicare Advantage plan available in Maui, at $200+ per month.
I absolutely love Kaiser!!
I finally feel like I have good medical coverage and will be able to live out my life here. They operate the only hospital on the island and have clinics in various towns.
If I need a test that is not available here, they fly me to Honolulu at no additional cost. I've been a couple of times now.
They use it because it's cheap, not because it's good.
It's cheap because the doctors are employees of the insurance company.
Not much incentive for your doctor to suggest that costly procedure over the therapeutic route, even if the procedure would be more beneficial, since there's a risk of getting fired due to cost cutting down the road. If you're going to say that doctors wouldn't do that; that they'd stand up for the patient, look at the last three years and try to say it with a straight face.
With all the regulation in the insurance industry, you'd think that the Kaiser model would be illegal. Gee, I wonder why it's not.
They can't very well make the Kaiser model illegal if it's the same model used by Medicaid (through county hospitals) and the VA.
I moved to Maui 9 years ago with exceptionally good medical insurance. The problem was a doctor shortage. For years, the best I could do was a physician's assistant, and now I'm on Medicare.
After a couple of substandard medical providers, I reluctantly decided to try Kaiser. It is the most expensive Medicare Advantage plan available in Maui, at $200+ per month.
I absolutely love Kaiser!!
I finally feel like I have good medical coverage and will be able to live out my life here. They operate the only hospital on the island and have clinics in various towns.
If I need a test that is not available here, they fly me to Honolulu at no additional cost. I've been a couple of times now.
How does Kaiser help the situation if there is a doctor shortage?
How does Kaiser help the situation if there is a doctor shortage?
Kaiser has plenty of doctors while other providers such as Maui Medical Group do not. Many doctors here jump ship to join Kaiser as well. The fact that Kaiser offers its personnel malpractice coverage is a big factor.
Kaiser employees and their families receive medical coverage as a perk. People who work there sometimes call it "golden handcuffs" because they can't afford to leave.
Looks like Woke Kaiser Permanente based in Oakland would have gone broke this year if not for big government bailouts.
I remember walking by a Kaiser Permanente clinic and I thought it was a homeless health care clinic because of the massive line.
One has to question the sanity of anyone who would have anything to do with Kaiser Permanente Investment scheme that masquerades as a health care provider
I wonder if California and Massachusetts residents will have to pay a tremendous amount for commercial health insurance coverage because they have so much woke investment schemes that masquerade as health care systems that are losing so much money with their gambling and paying doctors and nurses more in one hour than many countries pay per month.
Seems like the combination of high nurses, high doctor wages and 3.2 billion in gambling loses caused a big loss for Kaiser Permanente.
Kaiser Permanente seems more like a hedge-fund or investment scheme though that runs some hospitals on the side.
Seems like Woke Massachusetts General Brigham hospital also lost 2.3 billion dollars.
This is nothing but a hit piece. Did they fire you recently? I had Humana for a few years. They were truly awful!
The "government bailouts" are Medicare/Medicaid payments for services rendered, and the "gambling losses" are stock market investment fluctuations.
Virtually all of us with money to invest have suffered "gambling losses" recently.
QUOTE: Total operating revenues were $95.4 billion compared to $93.1 billion in 2021. Total operating expenses, meanwhile, were $96.7 billion compared to $92.5 billion in 2021.
2022 was a bad year for most healthcare providers.
Try telling the truth!
Last edited by Futuremauian; 02-26-2023 at 08:48 PM..
Reason: Clarification
These were stock market fluctuations, not "gambling losses".
This is a company with $96 billion in operating revenues last year. It was a bad year and they lost $4 billion. The previous year they made $8 billion. Shiit happens.
We've used Kaiser for years. The only time we debated leaving them was back in the 90s. At that time, Kaiser was making everybody see nurse practitioners instead of MDs. You only got to see an MD if you were really in bad shape. During that time frame, Verizon told Kaiser that if they didn't improve their services, they were going to remove Kaiser from the list of health care providers for their employees. Kaiser took that seriously and jettisoned the nurse practitioners and let everybody see MDs again. Still, one thing I ding them for is their mental health care could use a lot of improvement.
Right now, I have a really great PCP and I hope she sticks around. Many times I've seen the really good ones leave to go elsewhere. OTOH, they have gotten rid of some MDs who were bad...so...I give credit for that.
The county we live in gives Kaiser cards to welfare recipients. They don't get as many services and have co-pays.
Overall, I like that they are one stop shopping so to speak. I visit the PCP and get a new prescription, I just go downstairs to the pharmacy. Same thing if I need lab work done.
I had Kaiser for a couple years when becasue it was the cheapest plan I could get on the exchange. I'm lucky to live in an area with a lot of Kaiser facilities but the hospital is 20-30 minutes away and I hated having to go there for anything since it's always a zoo. Some things aren't handled locally though and require trips to facilities in other locations because they break things down into specialized care. Even seeing a Dermatolgist was weird because I had to go to a different city to have skin tags removed...and pay separetely for it. My old GP took care of that that stuff in her office. A few employees there told me they keep adding new enrollees but not the staff support them, and I believe it after experiencing some crazy wait times to get an appointment. I have friends who love it though so I guess it's whatever you're used to.
Looks like Woke Kaiser Permanente based in Oakland would have gone broke this year if not for big government bailouts.
I remember walking by a Kaiser Permanente clinic and I thought it was a homeless health care clinic because of the massive line.
One has to question the sanity of anyone who would have anything to do with Kaiser Permanente Investment scheme that masquerades as a health care provider
I wonder if California and Massachusetts residents will have to pay a tremendous amount for commercial health insurance coverage because they have so much woke investment schemes that masquerade as health care systems that are losing so much money with their gambling and paying doctors and nurses more in one hour than many countries pay per month.
Seems like the combination of high nurses, high doctor wages and 3.2 billion in gambling loses caused a big loss for Kaiser Permanente.
Kaiser Permanente seems more like a hedge-fund or investment scheme though that runs some hospitals on the side.
Seems like Woke Massachusetts General Brigham hospital also lost 2.3 billion dollars.
3.2 billion in gambling losses.... even worse than me in fanduel.
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