If Kaiser Permanente can't evade the state's scrutiny into its mental health fiasco, it will just buy the regulators doing the scrutiny. And get away with it when caught.
On Thursday, the Fair Political Practicies Commission approved a fine for a state official who was involved in the 2012 audit of Kaiser's mental health plan and then a month later started at the HMO and worked on responding to the survey.
According to the FPPC, while working with the Department of Managed Health Care, Marcella Faye Gallagher helped pick the survey team, developed the scope of work, counselled the survey analysts, advised on documents to be requested from Kaiser, and advised on how to add value to the survey. This was the first DMHC survey focusing solely on Kaiser's mental health procedures. She also reviewed and edited the preliminary survey report.
The regulator then left and a month later helped the insurer defend itself against the audit findings by providing both verbal and written feedback in response to the audit, which had identified significant problems, including Kaiser failing to provide timely care to patients.
As far as we can tell, there were no penalties imposed on Kaiser for hiring the regulator and allowing her to work on the same audit that it knew she worked on. With no punitive rules in place when people and companies abuse the revolving door between government and the industries they regulate, it's no wonder that companies and public employees manipulate the system.
