(tedeytan: Flickr)
The federal health law aims to tackle the problem of high health care costs by providing financial rewards to providers who do a better job coordinating patient care. But one shining example of that future has been here in California for decades. It’s Kaiser Permanente which is often touted as the nation’s best hope for bringing health care costs more in line with other developed nations.
Kaiser rose out of a utopian, industrialist dream. During the 1930s and 40s, Henry J. Kaiser wanted to make sure the workers at his Richmond shipyard were steady and strong.
George Halvorson, Kaiser’s CEO, draws a direct link between Henry Kaiser’s approach to building ships and his approach to designing a health system. “When Henry built things he tended to assemble an entire team to build all the parts,” he says. ”So when he started providing health care to his workers, he used that model which was to have a Kaiser hospital, Kaiser clinics.”
The strategy worked because it owned and operated its own hospitals and clinics and directly employed physicians. Continue reading
