November 09, 2005 | Graham

Patel, Kaiser and Dylan all caught in one web.



Mike Kaiser is the former state secretary of the Queensland ALP, former member for Woodridge and current chief of staff to Morris Iemma, the Premier of NSW. As far as I know he has nothing to do with Jayant Patel, the so-called “Doctor Death”, who set-off the Bundaberg Hospital inquiry. The Kaiser my headline refers to is Kaiser Permanente, one of the largest Health Management Organisations in the US, which is the target of http://www.kaiserthrive.org/. This organisation employed Patel – Dr Death – before he came to Australia. This article from The Oregonian, reproduced on the website, suggests a cover-up of Patel’s misdemeanours by the HMO because he was so profitable – sound familiar?
Dylan refers to Bob Dylan, and yes, that is the Bob Dylan who we all know and love. This quote from the Orange County Weekly reveals his part in the saga:

If you thought there was a great hue-and-cry a year ago when Bob Dylan licensed his song “Love Sick” for a Victoria’s Secret commercial—he even appeared in one of the spots—then the hubbub over Dylan’s latest business venture is certain to raise an even bigger stink: “The Times They Are A-Changin’” used to push the utter fabulousness of Kaiser Permanente, one of the nation’s largest health maintenance organizations. Naturally, as an HMO with over 8 million members, Kaiser is a lightning rod for controversy. In June, the California Department of Managed Health Care fined Oakland-based Kaiser $200,000 for disclosing the private medical records of approximately 150 patients, which had been posted on a publicly viewable web site. In 1999, Kaiser was successfully sued by several groups over its “In the Hands of Doctors” advertising campaign, which gave the false impression that Kaiser doctors were in full control of patient health decisions, and not a Kaiser corporate boardroom. In 1997, a California Supreme Court investigation found Kaiser’s complex patient complaint procedure unfair, a ruling that stemmed from the case of Wilfredo Engalla, who claimed that Kaiser doctors misdiagnosed him with colds and allergies for years before finally informing him he had terminal lung cancer (Engalla died the day after the arbitration process was completed)…But it’s also a tough call as to what’s worse—that duplicity, or the fact that “The Times They Are A-Changin’”—pretty much the most defining song of the 1960s—is now a jingle?

Whose reputation is next? Premier Pete?



Posted by Graham at 8:52 pm | Comments (1) |
Filed under: Australian Politics

1 Comment

  1. Profit Motive?
    Government and Private Company can be corrupted.
    Yet it remains a liberal members wet dream, to remove government and let unaccountable Private Business run our services. Less Accountability – our elected officials aren’t responsible.
    The State goverment has at least openly analyzed the shambles of public hospitals – when will someone blow the wistle on our private system?
    Remember there are more drug smokers at private schools then public, but private schools have a reason to hide such occurances to keep the money coming in.

    Comment by alphacoward — November 11, 2005 @ 6:17 pm

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.