(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Kaiser Permanente becoming healthcare "behemoth" via 5-6+ added system acquisitions [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-05-20 While regulators still must review this initial acquisition, the marriage of Kaiser and Geisinger would create a behemoth with more than $100 billion in annual revenue — 95% of it coming from the Kaiser side of the equation. Like Kaiser, Geisinger both owns hospitals — 10 of them — and operates its own health insurance program. Unlike California-based Kaiser, which operates a closed system of 39 hospitals and employs 24,000 doctors, Geisinger accepts health insurance from other payers. — Medscape Risant (which in French reportedly means “laughing”, FWIW) ...represents an opportunity for Kaiser, which currently operates in eight states and Washington, D.C., to expand its reach nationwide through targeted acquisitions of nonprofit community health systems, as smaller hospitals continue to struggle in a difficult operating environment. About half of all U.S. hospitals finished last year with negative margins, according to consultancy Kaufman Hall. Kaiser, which reported $95 billion in revenue in 2022, plans to spend $5 billion on Risant over the next five years, a Kaiser spokesperson said. It will add five or six health systems to Risant over that period, according to reports…. — healthcaredive.com ■ Becker's Kaiser posts $233M operating profit in [the first quarter of 2023] ■ fiercehealthcare.com with net income $1.2BILLION for the three months ended March 31, 2023. ■ The Oakland, California-based nonprofit {sic} reports over $95 billion in annual operating revenues and spanned 624 medical offices, 39 hospitals and 43 retail and employee clinics as of March 31. It counted a total of 12.7 million members as of March 31. Danville, Pennsylvania-based Geisinger ... had cared for nearly 1.2 million people across 2022... — fiercehealthcare.com Across a range of reportage on this said-to-be value-based health care acquistion/merger (see bibliography), a number of concerns were raised. One concern is that multiple consolidations like this —“5-6” after Geisinger— tend to put pressure upon other health provider systems in each given area to try to expand in order to be able to compete. And that consequent changes in the healthcare environment can cause increased struggle for local low-income community members in particular, in trying to obtain and afford the medical services they need. Downstream, as effects accumulate, some providers go bankrupt, leaving local communities with fewer and fewer resources, making them captive to the brute-financial-force survivors of the competition, forced either to pay what is demanded for healthcare, or go without. Sometimes the provider that shuts down is one that earlier gobbled up many of the rest. Meanwhile, acquisition and divestment of medical/health-care systems (with or without corporate raiding and destruction involved) becomes more a financial markets industry than ever, without regard for the crucial role of that industry in the lives of every ordinary person living in this country. The over-arcing question is whether bigger has ever reliably meant better. Kaiser Permanente is often mentioned as THE largest managed care system in the fifty U.S. states. While this doesn’t constitute a monopoly nationally, a possible model may exist in the form of KP’s massive control over Medicaid delivery in California (approximately known as MediCal), and the hoops-heavy KP system there for those patients, who by definition are rarely equipped to jump whenever and wherever KP says jump. (See references 25-30 in the bibliography below.) If the patient does not perform satisfactorily, the patient cannot obtain the needed care... It’s popularly said among progressives that the measure of a civilization is how well or how poorly it treats its most vulnerable members. If this criterion applies to semi-pseudo-nonprofit businesses and corporate-like organizations, even a partial monopoly may involve conduct not very civilized at all. The more so if with a track record toward employees and vulnerable patients that demonstrates the fact. Is a KP behemoth in the best interests of the American healthcare-needing public, regionally or nationally? Keep informed and then decide. To do that, if you are yourself a KP “member” (all KP staff are members too; that’s their only company-medical-benefits option), you may have a case of Stockholm Syndrome or investor bias best checked at the door. For more posts on KP, click on the KaiserPermanente tag . . For posts on KP’s venture capital investing, click on KaiserPermanenteVentures. (see also especially Feb 7 & 13, 2023 bibliog items below) Below is the so-far 177-item reverse-chron bibliography of professional journalism, union reportage, etc., for KP diaries posted by me, in case of reader concern about an under-informed or biased author. Browse at your leisure. Be grateful if your health allows you any. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/5/20/2170329/-Kaiser-Permanente-becoming-healthcare-behemoth-via-5-6-added-system-acquisitions Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/