Tim,

This may be because of the way medical insurance is handled in each state. Not all insurance providers are available in each state.

Humana has been expanding in California. Right now it is primarily for Medicare and their programs are very good for seniors. I wrote about it in one of my blogs last year. Web Link

Humana has an HMO with John Muir, but they wanted coverage in San Ramon so Muir affiliated with San Ramon Regional Medical Center. It appears they are spreading out into Alameda County. That's a good thing. It might hurt Valley Care but it will also provide more options for residents at better prices.

Considering that medical costs are controlled by insurance companies now, the bigger the company the more the clout. Humana has plenty of clout. That's the purpose of Obamacare. I don't like the way it was designed, and it certainly could and should be improved, but it is necessary to control high medical costs.

I would have prefered Medicare for all. Right now Humana plans in California are only for Medicare. But with the aging population, more and more people are qualifying for Medicare anyway. It's big business.

Obama didn't want "Socialist" medicine, which Obamacare isn't, but Medicare for all would be. I'm not an Obama fan, but he's definitely NOT a Socialist.

Roz

I just heard that the the CEO of Valley Care Medical Centers was let go. And the reason behind this is that they are being bought by Sutter.

I have read the blog posting three times and can not find any accusation by Tim that Obama is a socialist. Yet Roz decided it was necessary to respond and defend him against this charge. Is that the general conclusion people are coming to?

Instead, I read this as a very informative article about how local healthcare providers are reacting and reorganizing based on recent changes to federal law. Whatever that law means on any given day.

I didn't say Tim said Obama is a Socialist. I said Obamacare is not Socialist medicine like Medicare. I prefer Medicare.

Obamacare gives more power to insurance companies and that will result in changes to the medical industry in California, which is what Tim's article is about.

Roz

PS I wasn't defending Obama for not being a Socialist. I was criticizing him.

Tim -

Marcy refused to get along with anyone and ran ValleyCare into the ground It is bankrupt. She refused to cut her own salary, yet slashed the salary of her employees. The foundation loses millions of dollars per year. She needed to go. Affiliations with Stanford, Children's Hospital, etc have all failed because of her autocratic style. The tri-valley is better off without her.

Hoping that someone can help us understand comments from Roz. The double negatives and the many "nots" are confusing. There seem to be several conflicting ideas in a single post. What is she in favor of?

She tells us:

- Competition leads to better pricing for medical services and that is a good thing. (This would be free market capitalism.)

- The purpose of Obamacare is to give insurance companies more clout and is necessary to control medical costs. Here she seems to be in favor of limiting competition, strengthening a few large companies. This would be more in the realm of the type of socialism practiced in Europe and perhaps with some crony capitalism added for good measure.

- She likes Medicare which she says is a socialist concept.

- For unknown reasons she then wants to tell us that Obama is NOT a socialist. (No such statement was made in this blog or in the responses.)

Well Tim, your "brother blogger", as he calls himself, has decided to take on your blogs on his blog site. He has done this twice in the past week. He must think your topics are more interesting than his own. Some brother!

Web Link

Dear Tim,
Please look at the facts to explore further, perhaps interviewing different employees and staff from valleycare INSTEAD OF putting all words and phases directly received from Valleycare public relationship department.
Health care is changing drastically in local, regional and national levels and Board of directors of valleycare has been trying to evolve with the changes but has been "heavily-handled, handpicked and manipulated" by CEO Marcy Feit over last decades. It is now financially non-sustainable state independently and on the edge of outside financial help/affiliation to continue to survive.

Following are facts to be discovered by interviewing with Board of directors, employees of valleycare, different long-experienced independent and hospital owned physicians serving the area longer than Mrs Feit's era of CEO since 1997. Perhaps the sequel or Part 2 of above article ?
(1) Financial state of Valleycare hospital before forming valleycare foundation medical group (i.e buying physicians as employees) and current financial state. Financial sustainability of Valleycare Hospital and ValleyCare foundation medical group now.
(2) Actual rather than perceived impact of Valleycare foundation Medical Group on employees and hospital outpatient services which led to current financial state. It divided physicians into hospital-owned employee physicians and independent physicians who were treated very unfairly and discriminatively. It invited and helped growing of more competitions such as San Ramon/John Muir and Palo Alto and Kaiser. Many physicians left valleycare to work for PAMF/Sutter and referred outpatient services to San Ramon/Muir owned facility such as Pleasanton Imaging, and others such as Norcal and Quest Diagnostics etc.
(3) HOW AND WHY board of directors allowed and rewarded Marcy Feit, CEO with more than market compensations over years (compared to similar-sized hospitals) while hospital financial situation is in jeopardy? SEE ATTACHED FROM 2011 ARTICLE FROM CONTRA COSTA TIMES
Web Link
(4) What is the "ACTUAL REASON" for letting go Marcy Feit, who has been in the organization for about 42 years and was CEO the past 17? Just a short memo from the board to approximately 1,400 corporate members of the private nonprofit health system, members who have each donated $1,000 or more to the nonprofit? DON'T WE ALL DESERVED TO KNOW MORE Mr John Sensiba, chairman of board?

We are living smack in the middle of a time when healthcare and medical insurance AND Medicare is changing "left and right" - hard to keep up! KP opened their office in SR in November and though a member, I'm retaining my own doctor in Pleasanton. I am very supportive of the great emergency clinic across the street from the new KP/SR of John Muir. Absolutely essential and great cooperative tie with SR Regional. There is no question a certain amount of competitiveness is essential. The area populations can handle it I surmise. Though we needed Obamacare (-just a question of how it all came down) We all knew? Whatever MASSIVE change needed to occur, that it would take a decade to work out the kinks and true to form, and so it is (-and there are MANY) None of the occurrences cited above are a surprise or unexpected. At least? By some of us...

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