California Inks Sweetheart Deal With Kaiser Permanente, Jeopardizing Medicaid Reforms Santa Cruz Sentinel
SACRAMENTO, Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsom s administration has negotiated a secret deal to give Kaiser Permanente a special Medicaid contract that would allow the health care behemoth to expand its reach in California and largely continue selecting the enrollees it wants, which other health plans say leaves them with a disproportionate share of the program s sickest and costliest patients.
The deal, hammered out behind closed doors between Kaiser Permanente and senior officials in Newsom s office, could complicate a long-planned and expensive transformation of Medi-Cal, the state s Medicaid program, which covers roughly 14 million low-income Californians.
It has infuriated executives of other managed-care insurance plans in Medi-Cal, who say they stand to lose hundreds of thousands of patients and millions of dollars a year. The deal allows KP to limit enrollment primarily to its previous enrollees, except in the case of foster kids and people who are eligible for both Medicare and Medi-Cal.
Forget it, Jake. It’s California.