Daniel Garcia is the chief compliance officer of Kaiser Permanente, a sort of “chief investigator” for the organization. He was hired into that position, a position he helped create, in 2002. His history with Kaiser Permanente, however, dates back to 1992, when he first became a member of the organization’s Board of Directors. He continued to serve as an outside and independent director until he became chief compliance officer on February 1, 2002.

What is interesting about Mr. Garcia’s role at the organization is that he reports to the chief executive officer, George Halvorson and is also responsible for investigating Mr. Halvorson’s conduct. This reciprocal reporting relationship is not unique, however, and similar situations exist at many other organizations and companies. What is troubling, however, is the disturbing role Mr. Garcia played in hiring Mr. Halvorson, the significant resulting conflict of interest, and Mr. Garcia’s alarming history in Los Angeles politics, which is littered with serious allegations of corruption. In fact, it appears Mr. Garcia has never met a potential conflict of interest he didn’t like, but more on that in a moment…

When Mr. Halvorson was recently forced to address the mutual conflict of interest, he, again, mislead Kaiser Permanente employees by leaving out key details. Mr. Halvorson admitted that Mr. Garcia was “was on the committee that recommended that I be hired.” In fact, Mr. Garcia was the chair of the committee that hired Mr. Halvorson.

Mr. Halvorson went on to insist that “It’s…naïve, however, to say that Dan can’t subsequently do his job [as the chief of] compliance because of that prior committee role.” Mr. Halvorson insisted that he believes that demanding otherwise would mean that “any Board member on a search committee would be unable to make future decisions and judgments about people they had voted for in a search process.”

His straw man argument couldn’t be weaker. Here’s why…

It is extremely rare for an inside director to chair a search committee, let alone an inside director who also happens to be the chief compliance officer. A chief compliance officer should be be above reproach, and avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest.

Dan Garcia was an outside director when he was appointed to chair the selection committee. However, when he later became the primary candidate for the position chief compliance officer (which would have changed his status to a non-independent director), he should have stepped aside as head of the search committee. He didn’t. Instead, he created an even more troubling situation: Mr. Garcia hired Mr. Halvorson, the man who would become his boss. Mr. Garcia did so under the pretense of still being an “independent director.” Mr. Halvorson, by then the (not yet announced, but designated) chief executive officer, turned around and approved Mr. Garcia’s appointment as chief compliance officer. Tit for tat?

Perhaps if Mr. Garcia had been qualified to become chief compliance officer, the conflict would be less obvious. Instead, Mr. Garcia had no executive-level compliance experience or healthcare experience. In fact, Mr. Garcia’s most recent executive position at that point had been as a real estate advisor for a movie studio. That apparently qualified Mr. Garcia to make well over $1,800,000 each year as Kaiser Permanente’s chief compliance officer.

Take a closer look at the timeline:

In July 2001, then-Kaiser Foundation Health Plan chief executive David Lawrence announced he would be retiring, and Mr. Garcia was selected by the board to be the independent director who would chair the search committee.

Over the following months, Mr. Garcia eventually became a candidate to become the organization’s new chief compliance officer.

By October 2001, Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch had announced he intended to launch an investigation into Mr. Halvorson and his then-employer, HealthPartners.

By January 2002, Mr. Halvorson had become the lead candidate for the position, meaning he likely began receiving briefings on the organization’s operations, and almost certainly began having input into any major decisions the organization was making, such as… The appointment of Mr. Garcia on February 1, 2002.

Mr. Halvorson’s appointment was then announced by Mr. Garcia on March 7, 2002, barely a month later.

Assuming Mr. Garcia wasn’t qualified for the position of chief compliance officer, perhaps his record as an attorney and politician alone would have been clean enough to assume he could be a sort of “chief ethics officer”? Sadly, no. From quietly recommending his future wife to a city position (without pointing out they had a relationship and while glossing over her previous conviction and short jail time for forgery), to serious allegations that he engaged in a “pay for play” relationship with Los Angeles real estate developer Ted Stein, to his troubling relationship with Leland Wong (who he subsequently was required to investigate at Kaiser Permanente), Mr. Garcia’s past is filled with allegations of conflicts of interest and abuse of power.

In a 2004 exposé, the Los Angeles Times highlighted Mr. Garcia’s lack of concern for avoiding conflicts of interest (let alone the appearance):

Under the City Charter, commissioners are required to disqualify themselves from voting on projects in which they have a conflict of interest or the appearance of a conflict. In a series of opinions dating back many years, the city attorney’s office has consistently held that a commissioner should withdraw ‘whenever the facts are such that the public might well question his objectivity.’ [...] But in voting on Stein’s zoning change, Garcia [voted to approve] the request.”

Mr. Garcia, who chaired the planning commission, voted to approve a string of other requests that Mr. Stein brought before the commission, without ever disclosing their past business relationship (until the Los Angeles Times came knocking).

It’s clear that Dan Garcia is neither qualified nor capable of serving as any sort of “chief compliance” or “chief ethics” officer. As a city politician, he time and time again resigned under the stench of corruption, moving from the planning commission to the police commission and finally the airport commission. By the time the Los Angeles Times did its exposé in 2004, Mr. Garcia was already firmly in place at Kaiser Permanente, protected by his boss (and the man he just happened to have hired), George Halvorson.

Making $1.8 million each year.

Tit for tat.

Please stay tuned. More information on the coming relaunch of FixKP will be posted very soon.

People ask me sometimes why I still care about Kaiser Permanente. It’s tough to put the reasons into words, except to say that I believe in what Kaiser Permanente stands for. Do you know what it’s like to believe in a country, and just not its current administration? It’s that way with me and George. Halvorson, that is. Mr. Halvorson is destroying the organization’s principles, credibility, and integrity. While that’s painful to watch, I know his time there is temporary, and I know the people of Kaiser Permanente can repair the terrible damage he’s done once he’s gone.

That being said, I spent a few minutes redoing the voiceover for the original Broccoli ad, and I’m calling it Broccoli People. I’m no Allison Janney, but I think one important change needed to be made to the ad. The original ad ends with “We are Kaiser Permanente, and we stand for health.” I’m adding one word: people. So, the new version, Broccoli People goes: “We are the People of Kaiser Permanente and we stand for health.”

It’s pretty obvious that George Halvorson believes in profit, not in health, and certainly not in Kaiser Permanente. But, the people of Kaiser Permanente, our doctors, our nurses, they do stand for health, and they do believe in the principles Kaiser Permanente was founded upon.

The San Francisco Business Times today called me a “persistent critic” who has become “no more enamored of the healthcare giant or its CEO.” I think, the distinction of the organization and its current administration is an important one, and a distinction the paper didn’t make. While I recognize and try to bring some light to the ongoing series of lapses in patient safety and care at Kaiser Permanente, I recognize those lapses are the result of George Halvorson’s mismanagement of the organization. Cutting costs, at all costs, is a dangerous proposition for a healthcare organization, especially one as integrated as Kaiser Permanente. (You can follow and discuss, more closely, the press reports of Kaiser Permanente’s lapses over at Kaiser Thrive Exposed.)

But back to the paper. The piece also seemed to imply that George Halvorson was safe in his job, a bit of a difference from a year ago when the paper mentioned that “Halvorson [has been] under fire…for a variety of financial and other challenges facing the Oakland-based organization.” This time around, the paper says that “there’s no sign that Halvorson is in trouble with…the board.” Considering he handpicked almost every member of the board, and considering the board seems to be about as concerned about governance as Halvorson’s last board, I’m not surprised. But, I wonder, has the San Francisco Business Times ever spoken with an independent Kaiser Permanente board member? Or, for that matter, has any newspaper in California spoken to any independent Kaiser Foundation Health Plan director?

The Business Times reprinted this bit from a recent entry: “Someday, soon, George Halvorson will be gone, and Kaiser Permanente will have member representatives on its board, it will have a physician as its chief executive…and it’ll have preventive medicine again as a core focus (not as an advertising gimmick).”

Someday, soon.

This story was originally posted at justendeal.com.

When Kaiser Permanente launched the Thrive campaign in 2004, it set out to redefine the way people thought about the organization. I wrote, back in 2005: “It makes a world of difference when you’re pushing forward with a cause and people know why you’re doing it. Our cause is helping people live healthier lives.”

There are 13,000 physicians, 30,000 nurses, dietitians, health educators, pharmacists, and other caregivers at Kaiser Permanente who do go to work every day to help our members.

Yet, as Kaiser Permanente spends tens of millions of dollars each year on the Thrive advertising campaign, the organization is increasingly rolling out health plans that seem to be more about revenue and profit than about preventive medicine (or even medicine, period).

It has been disappointing to see the promise behind Thrive weaken, because I recognized it as a campaign that could have really been transformational for the organization, and not just transformational for the organization’s external image.

Still, when I see a piece like Saturday, one of the two new spots for 2007, I realize there’s still hope for Kaiser Permanente, because for all the disappointing and disheartening stories of our failures, there are still so many people we help, every day. But, that’s another story for another day. So, Saturday. It isn’t flashy. It doesn’t try to sell you anything. It’s just a few shots from a day in the life of one Kaiser Permanente member, who happens to be a cancer survivor. It’s not too often that you can call a commercial “beautiful,” but Saturday is just that.

Here’s the longer, ninety-second version of Saturday…

There’s also a shorter, thirty-second version, which you can see here. (I think Saturday is the best spot from the campaign, even better than Signs. On the flip side, the other new ad, Kid Wisdom, is probably the worst. Go figure.)

My first major in college was public relations, so I pay attention to stuff like this maybe more than I should. But Thrive was, and I hope still is more than just advertising. It is a message. It could be a promise, a promise that if you are (or become) a Kaiser Permanente member, we’ll help you live your life healthier, and we’ll help you get better if something bad happens, and we’ll do all of this, in ways that most other healthcare organizations can’t or won’t. Someday, soon, George Halvorson will be gone, and Kaiser Permanente will have member representatives on its board, it will have a physician as its chief executive, it will have an empowered member’s ombudsman, and it’ll have preventive medicine again as a core focus (not as an advertising gimmick).

One day, soon, Kaiser Permanente will again stand for health.

This story was originally posted at justendeal.com.

Update: In related news (to the post below), KP today said it has cut 175 positions from KP-IT headquarters in Pleasanton. Nearly two weeks ago, KP said it was laying off 100 employees, so it is not yet clear whether the the 175 figure is an additional round of layoffs or just an upward revision of the original figures released.

You might already know that not a dime of corporate income tax will be paid on that $2.5 billion in profit Kaiser Permanente has made so far this year. That’s because the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals side of Kaiser Permanente long ago applied to the Internal Revenue Service and was granted tax exemption as a “charitable” organization under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.

What makes Kaiser Permanente different from, say, WellPoint, which owns Blue Cross of California? WellPoint has to pay federal and state income taxes, so why not Kaiser Permanente, you ask? Theoretically, the $800 million that Kaiser Permanente pays out to various community organizations makes it more charitable than WellPoint, which gives away about $300 million each year through its various foundations. Of course, WellPoint is also a publicly-traded company, with shareholders who get a cut of its $3 billion in profit each year. On the flip side, all of Kaiser Permanente’s profit is supposed to go back into the community or into its hospitals (incidentally, both areas which have seen their funding cut significantly recently).

Otherwise, the big requirement that Kaiser Permanente set for itself a number of years ago is that it should operate for the “public benefit,” and that “its assets are irrevocably dedicated to public and charitable purposes.”

Which, at last, brings me to my topic of the day: how is eliminating jobs in California, and moving those jobs to India, Russia, the Philippines, China, and Israel “benefitting” Californians? (More than two-thirds of Kaiser Permanente members are in California, for what it’s worth.)

Two years ago, the California State Auditor did a report on offshoring by organizations which receive money from state contracts. The audit found Kaiser Permanente was one of six out of 39 audited organizations that shipped a portion of its workload to other countries. In the case of Kaiser Permanente, the state auditor found a “small portion” of the dollars the state paid the organization ultimately wound up employing someone in another country, instead of in California.

At that time, I believe about 100 of about 500 employees in the application support division within the organization’s information technology department were offshored. While those figures are important, the big difference is in cost: Kaiser Permanente spent about $107,000 in salary and benefits for the California workers, compared to only about $47,000 for the offshore workers. The direct amount of pay eliminated from the California economy? About $10 million.

No big deal, you say? The application support division offshoring was a test. An experiment. To see how well offshoring worked. Sadly for us, it went pretty well. At that time, about a fifth of the application support team was offshored. The new head of KP-IT, Phil Fasano, has a strong need to continue to cut costs (to keep his own job). What if a fifth of all of Kaiser Permanente’s information technology workforce was offshored? The total direct cost to the California workforce economy would be upwards of $110 million.

So, an organization that is specifically mandated to operate for the public benefit, which has “irrevocably” dedicated all its resources to benefit Californians, is offshoring a significant portion of its workforce. Does eliminating California jobs to cut costs, and shipping those jobs overseas fit within the requirements of a not-for-profit?

I think it’s very difficult to justify, especially for a not-for-profit that’s generating nearly $1 billion in profit every few months, tax free.

What do you think?

This story was originally posted at justendeal.com.

Update: Two hours later and KP still has not yet posted the results to its website, so here is a link to a PDF of the results. You have to dig down to the sixth paragraph to find mention of the “relatively flat” membership growth, which I’ve highlighted for your convenience.

Kaiser Permanente announced its most recent quarterly results today. Membership growth crumbled, with no new members added during the quarter, compared to more than 30,000 new members being added in the year-ago quarter. Reported operating income improved slightly, inflated by George Halvorson’s continued short-sighted efforts to burnish operating results at the expense of the organization’s balance sheet.

Year to date, membership growth has fallen more than 75%. This is the third quarter in a row that California healthcare consumers showed they were tired of George Halvorson’s “transformation” of Kaiser Permanente. For two quarters in a row now, Kaiser Permanente hasn’t added a single net new member (compared to having added nearly 75,000 net new members during the same period last year). How’s that for a testament to George Halvorson’s leadership?

It was a year ago this week that my internal message on the perils of Mr. Halvorson’s flawed leadership first became public. The key concern I emphasized most was the impact of Mr. Halvorson’s financial mismanagement of the organization. Internal financial models projected $2 billion in operating losses this year, $5 billion for 2008. Mr. Halvorson has worked to hide operating costs at the expense of our long-term stability, and his efforts have helped postpone those losses until another day. But our faltering membership shows the true colors of Mr. Halvorson’s mismanagement of the organization, as more and more of the organization’s precious resources have been shifted to Mr. Halvorson’s HealthConnect, instead of in true investment in our infrastructure and care delivery.

George Halvorson is trying to hold on to his job as long as possible. To do that, he will continue to erode investments in healthcare delivery for Kaiser Permanente members, to try and conceal his mismanagement of the organization’s finances. One tactic he is employing is job cuts. Barely a month ago, he trimmed a little less than 2% of our staff in Hawaii (which follows up on initial cuts in Hawaii late last year). In the past few days, he shipped another 2% of our information technology positions overseas. Two percent here, two percent there will add up.

This didn’t start last month, though. Over the past two years, Mr. Halvorson has been gradually degrading healthcare quality at Kaiser Permanente to fund his legacy, his pet project, HealthConnect. The kidney transplant fiasco in Northern California was a core component of Mr. Halvorson’s plan: cut costs by transferring patients from more expensive outside hospitals to new, cheaper in-house programs. The results were devastating for those patients and their families, and the program was eventually halted, but not before much damage had been done.

George Halvorson is determined to cut expenditures on patient care to fund his broken projects and misaligned priorities, and the only place for those cuts to come from is the quality of healthcare delivered at Kaiser Permanente.

Mr. Halvorson will continue to impose measures that hurt healthcare delivery to continue to polish results. The picture is clear: Mr. Halvorson will continue to do serious damage to Kaiser Permanente as long as he is permitted to do so by our unaccountable Board of Directors.

This story was originally posted at justendeal.com.

I’m going to get to George Halvorson being one of the eight seven chief executives “honored” by a so-called “Diversity Best Practices” company in just a minute. Before I do, you should know that Kaiser Permanente is expected to report its third quarter financial results this week, and the picture is not looking good. Apparently Mr. Halvorson is beginning to run out of ways to prop up the organization’s ailing finances, and my understanding is that the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Board of Directors is becoming more and more restless. Is the reality that their individual reputations are at stake beginning to set in and prod them into having some level of fiduciary loyalty and responsibility to Kaiser Permanente? We shall see, soon…

Back to the “news” that Kaiser Permanente is desperately trying to get any news outlet (anyone, anywhere?) to pick up: George Halvorson was one of eight seven chief executive officers “honored” as a “leader” for “diversity” by a for-profit company called “Diversity Best Practices”. You might be surprised to learn that “Diversity Best Practices” is owned by a company managed by eight white men. Go figure.

The more interesting news is that Kaiser Permanente was promoting Mr. Halvorson as one of “eight” chief executives to be honored right up to Friday. Apparently, the memo was delivered late to Oakland: at the last minute, the eighth chief executive’s “award” was revoked, leaving only seven remaining. (Here’s the corrected press release.)

That’s because that eighth chief executive, Stan O’Neal of Merrill Lynch, was fired last week for incompetence, and amid growing accusations of corruption.

Great company Mr. Halvorson keeps, no?

If that isn’t enough to make you question the integrity of this so-called “prestigious” award, this better be: the chief executives to be “honored” are “selected…based on an extensive application completed by each company.” That’s it. If Mr. Halvorson says Kaiser Permanente is promoting diversity, and is convincing enough with a bit of spun statistics, he gets honored. That, oh, and he has to “become a member” and write a big, big check from Kaiser Permanente’s bank account payable to “Diversity Best Practice”…

If George Halvorson actually shared some legitimate commitment to diversity, perhaps this “honor” would be a bit more “honorable.” But, the fact is, George Halvorson has a horrible track record on promoting diversity among the executive ranks at Kaiser Permanente.

So, let’s compare that eighth chief executive, Stan O’Neal, (the no longer “honored” one) and Mr. Halvorson, shall we?

Dishonoring Diversity: Halvorson and O’Neal

To understand just how laughable this award is, you need just go back a few months to a quote given by one of Stan O’Neal’s top lieutenants: “We’re not where I want us to be [on diversity], we’re not where Stan wants us to be or where Merrill Lynch wants to be.” I see. Perhaps “Diversity Best Practices,” the for-profit company that gives out the “award,” perhaps they decided that admitting the problem is the first step to fixing the problem? So, by extension, perhaps George Halvorson talking so much about diversity (but doing very little to actually promote it within his own organization) actually counts for a lot? Who knows.

So here’s to Mr. Halvorson and his band of eight seven brothers (yes, all seven are men, and six of them are white). Congratulations on your much deserved “honor.”

This story was originally posted at justendeal.com.

The Los Angeles Times today has a number of letters to the editor that were written in, most praising the paper for its in-depth coverage of important health issues at California hospitals. One, though, criticized the paper’s editors for not printing more positive stories about Kaiser Permanente:

The [Devin Valenzuela] story is the latest in an ongoing series portraying Kaiser Permanente in a negative light. As a Kaiser Permanente physician, I see firsthand the excellent quality of care we provide to our members on a daily basis. I cannot recall the last time I read a positive story about our organization in The Times. When we commit to the costly deployment of one of the largest electronic medical record systems in the country to benefit our members, we are criticized by you unfairly. When we are compared quite favorably with other healthcare providers by independent national evaluators, nothing is written.

We do not claim to be perfect. However, we are committed to delivering the highest quality of care and access in a cost-effective manner. Kaiser Permanente should be the type of health plan you judge objectively, rather than publishing only negative stories (as exhibited by your track record).

Stephen Munz, M.D.
Anaheim

The Los Angeles Times certainly doesn’t need my help, but I believe Dr. Munz has missed a number of recent stories in which the paper has, in fact, noted Kaiser Permanente’s achievements. The truth is that Dr. Munz has a point: there are nearly 170,000 people at Kaiser Permanente doing the right thing every day. Unfortunately, under George Halvorson and Daniel Garcia, a culture of corruption at the highest levels has grown, a culture that covers up wrongdoing instead of addressing it. In Baby Devin’s case, for example, the Times article said that the head of the Northern California physician group, Dr. Robert Pearl, was aware of issues surrounding Hamid Safari, and did nothing.

Until George Halvorson is gone, until the leadership of Kaiser Permanente recommits itself to the principles it was founded on, I can only imagine that horrific stories will continue to come to light, like the kidney transplant program breakdown, like the systematic, unethical treatment of homeless patients, like the electronic medical record system fiasco, like the coverup of an allegedly incompetent perinatologist accused of killing babies.

It’s worth, remembering, though, once again, that there are over a hundred thousand caregivers at Kaiser Permanente, including people I care deeply for, who believe passionately in their work, who go to work every single day to try to help make our members’ lives better.

Just in case Dr. Munz missed it, from earlier this week:

“…For overall clinical quality, Kaiser Permanente got the highest score…notching three out of four stars, or a ‘good’ rating.” [Los Angeles Times, October 18, 2007]

This story was originally posted at justendeal.com.

Robert and Lilly Balaka-Long. Lehna Brewer. Mychelle Williams. Paris Bessard. Now, Devin Valenzuela.

The front page of this morning’s Los Angeles Times has the chilling story of baby Devin Valenzuela. Baby Devin was the second baby, a boy, born in April to Sarah Valenzuela. Unlike his twin, though, Baby Devin passed away. And the cause of the death of Sarah Valenzuela’s baby is horrifying:

Though the baby was not in distress, Kaiser Permanente perinatologist Hamid Safari attached a vacuum extractor to the boy’s head to draw him out. Again and again he tugged, but still the baby would not come. He vigorously shook the vacuum, up and down, side to side… It took 90 minutes and six tries — the last with Safari on his knees, pulling. Horrified staffers — and the boy’s father — looked on as baby Devin finally emerged. His skin was a bloodless white, his neck elongated and floppy. His spinal cord had been severed.

This was not a single incident, though. And Baby Devin Valenzuela was apparently not the first baby to needlessly die under Dr. Safari’s care. “As far back as 2002, a physician review committee at the hospital concluded that Safari provided ‘inappropriate’ care.”

[After Baby Devin's death,] staffers at the Fresno birthing center were devastated and angry — and not just because of the twin lost that night in 2005. Over the years, doctors and nurses repeatedly had complained to higher-ups — including Kaiser’s top medical officer in Northern and Central California, [Dr. Robbie Pearl], — about problems they saw in Safari’s skills and behavior, according to interviews and documents.

The Los Angeles Times is clear: “This is a story not just of tragic medical outcomes, but of a health plan that did not prevent them.”

Perhaps most shocking? “Still, the doctor continues to work at Kaiser Fresno, practicing under restrictions that staffers say have not been explained to patients.”

The story doesn’t end there, though. After Baby Devin’s death, two Kaiser Permanente doctors recognized something had to be done. “‘We do not feel that our perinatologist is competent,’ reads an August 2005 petition signed by eight of Safari’s peers, about half of the ob-gyn department. ‘Over and over again he put our patients at risks and most recently with the undeniably terrible outcome.’”

What happened to the physicians who pushed for Hamid Safari’s practice to be restricted? Dr. Gilbert Moran and Dr. Robert Rusche and the other physicians were punished for their vigilance and commitment to ensuring the integrity of Permanente medicine. “In the months that followed, the hospital administration chastised the eight obstetricians who submitted the petition warning administrators…” Dr. Moran and Dr. Rusche were treated especially harshly for bringing the issues to light. “[Dr.] Moran was suspended for two weeks without pay, had his salary cut by $20,000 a year and was denied a year-end bonus, while [Dr.] Rusche was suspended for one week without pay and denied a bonus, according to their disciplinary letters.”

After that, Dr. Rusche and Dr. “Moran gave up on resolving matters internally. They took their complaints to the medical board.” Finally, “late last month, the state medical board accused [Hamid] Safari of gross negligence, seeking to revoke or suspend his license.”

This is a bastardization of what Kaiser Permanente once stood for. It’s to cut spending on care, to protect reputations, at whatever cost. Preventive medicine? Responsible medicine?

Dr. Robert Pearl knew that this man was accused of killing babies. He did nothing.

Dr. Pearl needs to resign. Today. And George Halvorson needs to follow him out the door.

This story was originally posted at justendeal.com.

The gist: Yogi Berra perhaps knows something about where Kaiser Permanente is now heading under George Halvorson: “We’re lost. But we are making good time.” Mr. Halvorson has taken to devoting his time to writing weekly email messages to remind Kaiser Permanente employees that he is still in charge, and his book tour has managed to sell a few dozen of his books. He may not be a great author, but he’s an even worse chief executive. Mr. Halvorson is moving Kaiser Permanente further and further away from the principles of Dr. Sidney Garfield, and he has nearly stripped the organization of any semblance of charitable motive or mission. If the response to Mr. Halvorson’s book is any indication, we all now recognize him for the buck naked emperor he is. It’s unfortunate that the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan board of directors doesn’t seem to know or care what’s going on at Kaiser Foundation Health Plan.

The whole story: You might have noticed that George Halvorson recently wrote a new book. You might also have noticed that Mr. Halvorson has yet again been wasting Kaiser Permanente member resources to try and promote his (latest) new book! Thankfully, all that hard work has paid off. Mr. Halvorson’s book has landed at the impressive spot of 36,024 on the Amazon Bestseller List. In doing my part to help the cause of promoting Mr. Halvorson’s plan of unaffordable (but) mandatory healthcare for all, here’s a link to the page where you can purchase the book. (Thankfully, Amazon also sells matches, so in case of a power outage, Health Care Reform Now! should be good for something.)

Charles Andrews over at Monthly Review is taking a critical eye to Mr. Halvorson’s supposed “leadership” of Kaiser Permanente, too. Writes Andrews, sarcastically: “Certainly, Kaiser executives are not of a non-profit mind. Kaiser chief executive officer George Halvorson takes around $2 million a year…” (Which would be about enough to cover at least a thousand poor California kids, in case that matters.) Mr. Andrews goes on to call Mr. Halvorson’s plan out for what it is: “phony health reform.”

The truth is, with membership stagnant, Mr. Halvorson’s only hope for holding onto his job much longer would be a windfall of millions of new members through mandatory health coverage. Hiding Kaiser Permanente’s true financial picture behind leasebacks and self-insurance schemes and ever-higher premiums can only last so long. What a sad state George Halvorson will be leaving Kaiser Permanente in.

Finally, an update: Baby Andrew Balaka-Long has finally been transfered from Kaiser Permanente to the neonatal intensive care unit at San Diego’s Rady Children’s Hospital, after a DMHC physician reviewer and a judge had ordered Kaiser Permanente to transfer the baby to a “better-equipped” hospital. The baby’s transfer comes “weeks” after his parents first requested the transfer, precious weeks for severely premature Baby Andrew. Once again, Dr. Garfield must be rolling in his grave. All of this so so George Halvorson’s “financial leadership” of Kaiser Permanente could look a little better than it should.

This story was originally posted at justendeal.com.