Kaiser’s mental health services were so bad that their providers went on strike a couple years ago. They’re paid a fraction of what they could make in private practice.
https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/kaiser-strike-mental-hea...
FWIW, Kaiser isn’t cheap for employers or individuals but it offers a no BS system for claims and great care.
As a non-American I assume that Kaiser implements some sort of barriers to stop smaller competitors from rising up?
That plus as the insurers vertically integrate all the way down to care providers, they’re making it harder and harder for external providers to join their insurance network.
Capitalism doing capitalism things, and we have enough rightwingers to neuter any possible intervention.
FTC's attention on non-competes in healthcare:
* https://www.sheppardhealthlaw.com/2024/04/articles/antitrust...
* https://gi.org/2024/05/03/ftc-finalizes-ban-on-non-competes/
For vertically integrated payer-providers pushing non-owned physicians out of their insurance networks, you need only read the quarterly filings or listen to investor calls for any of these entities. They brag about it as an efficiency gain.
Regarding rightwingers neutering interventions:
* The FTC vote on non-competes was precisely on party lines
* Obviously the Trump admin would not allow FTC (or anyone else) to go after vertical integration + expansive, market-degrading non-competes in healthcare
* There is no GOP proposal anywhere to solve this, nor is it mentioned in the GOP platform whatsoever
* Project 2025 explicitly says the FTC should have no authority to analyze vertical integration as an enforceable anti-competitive behavior