From: ceb@dbrus.Unify.Com (Caroline E. Bryan)
Subject: Kaiser doesn't do health care (Was: Re: National Health Care)
Organization: /usr/lib/news/organization
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 92 16:35:14 GMT

In article <1992Aug12.012125.13902@news.Hawaii.Edu> blais@milo.ifa.hawaii.edu (Kristin Blais) writes:
>In article <1992Aug8.215035.13996@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca> golchowy@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Gerald Olchowy) writes:
>>
>> Models of national health insurance which work and cost less than the US
>> system and cover everyone exist all over the Western capitalist world.
>> Hawaii has demonstrated in the US that the German employer based model can
>> work rather well even in the US...and up here in Canada we have demon-
>> strated that a single payer model is also rather effective, and both allow
>> for essentially unlimited doctor choice, in fact a lot more than Americans
>> with HMO's have.
>
> AHEM as someone who *lives* in Hawaii and is legally considered a state em-
> ployee (a graduate student for U.H.) I belong to an "employer based model"
> and I dispute your claim that it "works".... (I belong to Kaiser by the
> way) ...

Ah, yes, Kaiser.  My mother, who is a doctor, says "Kaiser has their own way
of practicing medicine".  I belonged to Kaiser for seven months.  They in-
sisted that I take hypertensive medication that has serious side effects, be-
cause the medication I was taking before I joined Kaiser isn't on their list,
despite the fact that my old (and current) medication has NO side effects AND
is cheaper.  I tried to sign up for my "own personal physician" (Kaiser's ad)
and was told I've have to be on a waiting list for a YEAR and even then they
couldn't guarantee there'd be a slot open for me then.  The DAY after I left
Kaiser I got my "own personal physician" who prescribes the cheaper and bet-
ter hypertensive medication, with whom I can get an appointment in less than
6 weeks, and who doesn't require me to drive 45 miles during working hours to
see him.  And my medical expenses are covered by a "traditional" health in-
surance company.

Kaiser is WORSE than any HMO my company is enrolled in; and to equate Kaiser
with any normal "traditional" insurance plan is like trying to equate maggots
with prime rib.

> I must listen to a nurse tell me what doctor I need to see for specific
> problems, so if you have anything out of the ordinary ... you get batted
> around a bunch of doctors and no plan of attack for actually curing the
> disease takes place. 

This is typical of Kaiser (one "doctor" told me to take an over-the-counter
medicine that contains a substance the medical form she literally had under
her nose said that I'm allergic to).  It is not typical of the "traditional"
health insurance companies.

> ... BUT if the primary goal is to provide good health care these companies
> fail. 

Again, comparing Kaiser to real health insurance companies is highly unfair
to the real health insurance companies.  In the 1970's, Kaiser was success-
fully sued for wrongful death:  a FOAF's wife had mono, but couldn't take time
off from the baby to rest properly.  When she collapsed, the FOAF took her to
to Kaiser's hospital here in Sacramento, where they refused to admit her be-
cause she "wasn't sick enough".  A few days later she lapsed into a coma, at
which point they allowed as how she might be "sick enough" and admitted her.
But it was too late for her, and she died.  The FOAF sued successfully for
wrongful death, and at least in this town the Kaiser hospital now has less
iron-bound rules about how sick is "sick enough".  It might not have affected
Kaiser's operations elsewhere in California, let alone in Hawaii, though.


Carrie		ceb@rechenau.unify.com	x6244		--------------------+
| "The Americans call me by value, and the Europeans call me by name."	    |
|							 - Niklaus Wirth    |
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