Cleaning up after George Halvorson…

(…it’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it…)

Last week, I said I would write a series of posts under the title: “Who Will Be Kaiser Permanente’s Next CEO?” The response I received from folks inside Kaiser Permanente was overwhelming: it’s time for George Halvorson to go. I wrote last week that perhaps the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Board of Directors should consider bringing in Mary Brainerd to clean up George Halvorson’s mess. While I think that’s somewhat unlikely, today’s possibility is much more realistic. Let me introduce you to Howard Kahn.

If you live in Los Angeles, you may be familiar with L.A. Care. It’s the largest non-profit, public health plan in the country. It is headed up by a man by the name of Howard Kahn, a respected man in the healthcare industry and in the community. In fact, two members of L.A. Care’s Board of Governors are selected by its members. Now there’s a novel idea.

What’s remarkable about L.A. Care is that it actually tries to do the right thing. The California Department of Managed Health Care’s Complaint Results Report for 2006 couldn’t make that clearer: Kaiser Permanente members registered over 1,500 complaints against the organization. By contrast, L.A. Care had barely two complaints.

Think about that. Kaiser Permanente has just over six million members in California. L.A. Care has a bit shy of one million. But two complaints compared to well over 1,500? There’s no comparison there. Obviously L.A. Care and Howard Kahn are doing something very right (and obviously Kaiser Permanente is doing something very wrong).

Let’s put it a different way. For every ten thousand members, Kaiser Permanente had 2.59 complaints. By contrast, L.A. Care had 0.03. Think about that. Out of the 49 full service health plans in California, Kaiser Permanente was the worst. Why is that particularly disappointing? Because even the for-profit Blue Cross of California substantially beat the “not-for-profit” Kaiser Permanente (with 1.83 complaints per ten thousand members).

Until Kaiser Permanente has a chief executive officer who believes in its not-for-profit, preventive, responsible medicine principles, none of this is going to change. Maybe Howard Kahn is the man to turn Kaiser Permanente around?

Stay tuned. In the next couple of days, we’ll take a look at candidate number three.

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