[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 153 (Thursday, September 28, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1862]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         CELEBRATING 50 YEARS OF SERVICE TO BAY AREA RESIDENTS

                                 ______


                        HON. FORTNEY PETE STARK

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 28, 1995

  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, this Sunday, Kaiser Permanente Health Plan 
will celebrate its 50th birthday. Although Kaiser dates back to 1933, 
it was on October 1, 1945, that the plan was opened to public 
membership in the San Francisco Bay area.
  Back in 1933, Dr. Sidney Garfield, the founding physician of Kaiser 
Permanente Health Plan, developed the principles of modern prepaid 
medical care in southern California when he provided health care to 
5,000 workers who were building the aqueduct to carry water from the 
Colorado River to Los Angeles.
  Five years later, Henry J. Kaiser was leading a consortium of 
companies building the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington State when he 
realized that labor unions were unhappy with the fee-for-service care 
being provided to the 10,000 workers and their families. Kaiser's son, 
Edgar, who was directing the project, invited Dr. Garfield to come to 
Washington and form a medical group to furnish health care to the 
workers and their families.
  In 1942, Henry Kaiser and Dr. Garfield transplanted the program to 
Kaiser's wartime shipyards in Richmond, CA, and the Portland-Vancouver 
area. They then expanded it to the Kaiser steel mills in southern 
California. With the end of World War II and the closing of the 
shipyards, the health plan was incorporated into a nonprofit public 
trust and opened to the general public.
  Today, Kaiser Permanente serves more than 6.6 million people--making 
it both the world's oldest and largest nonprofit integrated health care 
system. Mr. Speaker, I ask you and my colleagues to join me in 
celebrating the birth of Mr. Kaiser and Dr. Garfield's idea, which has 
since developed into one of the most influential forces in the delivery 
of modern health care and a model for others to follow.

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