Time always reveals.

The gist: The bad news George Halvorson seemed to be preparing for is in today’s Los Angeles Times: the parents of seven-week-old Andrew Balaka-Long are trying desperately to have their baby transferred to a non-Kaiser Permanente hospital. Baby Andrew is a triplet, but his two other siblings passed away. His parents obtained a court order forcing Kaiser Permanente to allow Baby Andrew to be transferred to a non-Kaiser Foundation Hospital. And, Baby Andrew’s parents are suing Kaiser Permanente for wrongful death and medical malpractice in the death of Baby Andrew’s two siblings.

The whole story: I recently commented on the bizarre message George Halvorson sent earlier this week, and how he was seemingly excusing medical errors as inevitable. I wrote that the message seemed to almost be preparing Kaiser Permanente employees for another round of bad news. Is the death of Baby Andrew’s brother, Robert, and sister, Lilly, the bad news George Halvorson already knew about?

While Baby Andrew’s parents were able to have Kaiser Permanente’s refusal to allow his transfer to a “better-equipped [non-Kaiser] hospital,” overturned, the sad situation didn’t end there. Unfortunately, no other hospital has so far been “willing to accept the infant,” leaving Baby Andrew in a hospital that has, according to the baby’s father, “bungled the boy’s care.” (The baby’s father is a gynecologist.)

As always, Kaiser Permanente’s spokesman seemed to be a little short on empathy, only saying that “Whether [the other hospitals] accept the child or not is out of our hands.” Of course, forcing the parents of the baby to take Kaiser Permanente to court to ensure the baby is treated in the most adept facility, wasting precious time… The decision to put his parents through that ordeal, that decision was in Kaiser Permanente’s hands. Baby Andrew, instead, has spent precious this time in a facility where his two other siblings died, in a Kaiser Permanente facility that, his parents argue, can’t provide him the care he needs.

Sidney Garfield believed Kaiser Permanente should exist to remove the complication of the “cost of care” from medical decisions. In Baby Andrew’s case, money was undoubtedly front and center in Kaiser Permanente’s denial of his transfer to a better facility. The cost to Baby Andrew’s family, for the time wasted in fighting Kaiser Permannete? It could be astronomical. The cost to Kaiser Permanente? Virtually nothing.

Kaiser Permanente needs leaderships that believes in the values of Sidney Garfield, leadership that believes in providing, not withholding care. Leadership that spends its time making healthcare more affordable, and more universal, rather than cutting staff, cutting resources, and writing and promoting books. When will Kaiser Permanente have leadership again?