Kaiser Foundation HealthPlan of Texas Inc history

1933-40: First Prepaid Health Insurance Plan Is Developed

1938: Henry Kaiser convinces Garfield to establish a group-practice prepayment plan for Grand Coulee Dam construction workers.

But when this construction project neared completion in 1941, it looked as if Garfield's innovative system of funding medical care was again going to be terminated.

The Permanente Foundation Hospital in Oakland after 1942 rebuild. (attribution: Kaiser Permanente)

In September, 1945, the Henry J. Kaiser Company established the Permanente Health Plan, a nonprofit trust, and the medical care program was on its way.

The first medical group, The Permanente Medical Group, formed in 1948 in Northern California.

When Doctor Reimers moved to Denver in 1950, he joined the University of Colorado as a Surgical Fellow under Doctor Henry Swan.

In 1952, James Vohs began his career with Kaiser in labor and industrial relations with several different components of the Kaiser Company.

The Regional Oral History Office was established in 1954 to augment through tape-recorded memoirs the Library's materials on the history of California and the West.

1955: Kaiser Permanente is reorganized to enable partnerships between the medical and management professions and to provide physicians with an investment stake in the program's future.

In 1957 he joined the Health Plan in Los Angeles as employee relations advisor, shortly thereafter becoming Health Plan manager of the Southern California Region.

However, that complex, high rise medical facility, commenced at the beginning of February, was serving patients November 15, 1958, just two weeks behind Mr.

At the stage of development of dual choice plans in 1959 it was not at all evident that the selection problems were serious problems.

Pacific Medical Associates was the initial physicians' organization in the Hawaii Region, supplanted in August 1960 by the Hawaii Permanente Medical Group.

The schedules showed that each of the five partners received somewhat over $50,000 from the partnership for the calendar year 1961.

1963: Membership in Kaiser Permanente health plans reaches one million.

Fleming, do you recall why Edgar Kaiser and Gene Trefethen would have been opposed in 1964 to expansion?

When Henry J. Kaiser passed away in 1967, Kaiser Industries published this short book as a tribute to the company's founder.

The Colorado Permanente Medical Group, consisting of three doctors, was organized in 1969 with Bill Reimers as chief of surgery.

1970-96: Steady Growth Despite Stiffening Competition

*The preceding transcript is from the University of Virginia for the clearest possible presentation (pathway discovered by Vickie Travis). Check – February 17, 1971, 5:26 pm – 5:53 pm, Oval Office Conversation 450-23.

The ball began to roll with the legislation of 1973-4, when the federal government got into huge funding into this area.

In 1974 Henry Meade Kaiser became CEO of KFI. Was that a titular position?

In 1977 Fleming returned to the Central Office as Senior Vice President in its Executive Department.

A Perspective on Kaiser-Permanente Type Health Care Programs: The Performance Record, Criticisms and Responses Oakland: Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc., January 1979.

In 1980, the organization established its first region in the eastern United States, in the Washington, D.C., area.

The combination of taking an underwriting risk and being subject to retroactive changes through cost reimbursement methodology was not practical from the viewpoint of Kaiser Permanente and most other plans. It was not until the Medicare amendments of 1982, when the Medicare authorities were beginning to recognize the value of a price system as contrasted with a cost system, that the legislation was finally amended in a manner that permitted

He attended Harvard Business School's Advanced Management Program, and proceeded to shepherd the Permanente Medical Group's growth to 150 physicians and nearly 155,000 members by the time he retired, for medical reasons, at the end of 1984.

The organization expanded again in 1985, when it added three more geographic regions to its total: Georgia, Kansas City, and North Carolina.

Similarly the project lost Karl Steil due to his lengthy illness and death in 1986.

1987: Membership climbs to five million.

Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc., March 15, 1989.

Kaiser spokespersons were also placed on MacNeil-Lehrer, First Business, and CBS Evening News to promote the Kaiser brand of HMO. A report by the California Nurses Association found that in 1995 Kaiser paid out $96.1 million to its top four management consultant firms alone.

In 1996, the year following its 50th anniversary, Kaiser Permanente enrolled health plan membership reached 7.4 million.

It was also in 1997 that the organization took a groundbreaking step when it established a partnership with the AFL-CIO, becoming the first health-care management program to partner management with labor.

In the search for more profitable markets to enter, in 1998 the company also undertook a partnership alliance with Miami-based AvMed Health Plan, thereby gaining a foothold in Florida.

Kaiser closed its unprofitable Northeast division in 2000.

In March 2002, Kaiser Permanente announced that it was naming George C. Halvorson as its new chairman and CEO. At the time of his selection, Halvorson was president and CEO of HealthPartners of Minneapolis.

In 2004, Kaiser launched a $40 million dollar ad campaign titled “Thrive”. The television, radio, billboard, print, and web campaign focuses on the theme of preventive care.