Today, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom (D) is scheduled to announce that Kaiser Permanente will begin serving patients in Healthy San Francisco on July 1, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
Healthy San Francisco aims to provide health care access for all city residents. It receives funding from the city, state, employer contributions and patient fees.
Kaiser is the largest health care provider in California. It will join three not-for-profit hospitals, San Francisco General Hospital and UC-San Francisco Medical Center in providing services through the program. Primary care is available at 27 community clinics.
Benchmarks
Today, Newsom also will announce that Healthy San Francisco has served 40,000 residents during its two years of operation.
The benchmark means the city is about two-thirds of the way toward meeting its goal of serving all 60,000 uninsured residents. However, the 60,000 estimate was made in 2007 and does not account for any increase in the uninsured because of the recession (Knight, San Francisco Chronicle, 6/3).