Kaiser Permanente health care in Ohio - gone.

In My Humble Opinion
1

I had Kaiser health care coverage for decades. My employer (NASA, so US government) offered many national and local plans for employees and retirees to choose from. Kaiser was the clear choice for a lot of people. They were a one-stop shopping health plan, an HMO. They provided the health insurance, and owned everything - the hospitals, the pharmacies, the doctor’s groups. Their premiums were always the lowest, even though competing plans had far less coverage.

In instances where greater expertise was needed, they partnered with the Cleveland Clinic. I had bypass surgery in 2000 at the Clinic. I didn’t even get a bill. Everything was covered, presumably over $100,000 for a triple bypass and several days in the Clinic. Kaiser was held up nationally as a shining example of how a health company can get it right.

That all changed. A couple of years ago, Health Span bought the entire Ohio Kaiser operation. Everything was fine for a year or so, nothing changed except for the sign on the buildings.

Then Health Span began to realize they did not have the expertise to pull off what Kaiser had done so effortlessly. They closed several entire facilities and the pharmacies in other facilities to cut operating expenses.

Then they sold off the physician’s group and we all had to choose new doctors from a new list (some switched over). Then they closed all the in-house pharmacies. Then the Health Span name itself was removed from the buildings and they became Metro Health, an existing area hospital group. At least now we had more places to go. Health Span still underwrote the coverage.

Through all this, the costs for insurance only increased a little bit each year. In the turmoil of the Obama health coverage, that was good. Last year I paid about $250 a month for complete coverage with very modest co-pays ($25 for office visits, $250 for surgery, etc).

Yesterday I received the 2017 health care plan book which outlines coverage and costs. I was informed that beginning in January, Health Span’s insurance is now provided by Medical Mutual. Dreading what I was about to read, I quickly thumbed through to the payment page. My plan (low option, self and spouse) is now going to cost me $577 a month.

I searched around online to see what Kaiser’s premiums in other states is going to be in 2017. About $275 a month. This is going to hurt. I now have to budget an extra $325 a month for health insurance (I’m retired).

So, did we, as subscriber’s to Kaiser before all this started, have a reasonable expectation of coverage that would continue at the rates we were paying when Health Span bought us out? Any recourse concerning their inability to operate this large health plan they purchased?

I’m thinking class action lawsuit. Yeah, I’m probably dreaming.

Dennis

2

What’s the cost of moving to another state?

3

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Do you read the news? Health coverage costs across the board is expected to be up on average 25% this coming year, with many carriers increasing their premiums 50% or more.

Good luck with your lawsuit. :rolleyes:

4

That is unfortunate. We had Kaiser in California and it was great. Unfortunately they don’t have a presence here in Washington state (or if they do, they’re not available with our employers).

We haven’t had huge problems with our current providers. But we do have the “standard” issues with confusing billing coming in at seemingly random intervals. Kaiser was a lot more consumer friendly with the birth with complications of our son. I think there was one $100 copay for the entire process, and of course with everything in house there wasn’t the issue of a bunch of confusing bills from a bunch of seemingly third parties.

5

Yeah, I read it :mad:. The reason I presented it that way is because I have never signed anything with Health Span, Metro Health or Medical Mutual’s name on it. Just the original Kaiser agreement. And, as I pointed out, Kaiser is still charging the same as they always did.

If I went and found the original notices from Health Span, they probably had the option to change carriers at that point. But everything stayed the same for so long that no one worried about it. Sigh. There goes the Maserati. And they just got the new Maserati SUV at the dealer around the corner…

Dennis

6

For what it’s worth, my Kaiser premiums here in Southern California are about $600 a month for a “Gold” plan, going up to about $650 in January. My COBRA payments for my employer’s Platinum-equivalent plan would have been over $1100. (I’m female and middle-aged.) My husband gets Kaiser though Medicare, for $20 per month. I’m sorry to hear about the demise of Kaiser in your state, here in SoCal it’s awesome, especially for people like my husband who has a rare, interesting disease. (I’d rather be healthy than interesting, but he does seem to get special treatment at times; many of his doctors have only heard about his illness in med school and never thought they’d see an actual patient.) If it goes away in California I don’t know what we’ll do.

7

But Obama promised us that the average household would save $2500 and that we could keep our health plan and Doctor.

I thought I was just unlucky in that my health care went up and I was forced to change plans and Doctors.