Striking nurses back bill requiring health plans that receive state subsidies to disclose investments

Feb. 11—While the United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals Unfair Labor Practice strike against Kaiser Permanente for the third straight week, a California state lawmaker is leading the fight for transparency, accountability, and safe patient care in the nonprofit health care system.

On Tuesday, California State Assemblymember Liz Ortega (D-San Leandro) introduced AB 1799, a bill that would require nonprofit health plans that receive significant state subsidies — like Kaiser Permanente — to disclose direct and indirect investments, including holdings tied to for-profit prisons and immigrant detention corporations.

"Nonprofit health care plans benefit from public subsidies and taxpayer support because of their obligation to put patients and community health first," a statement by United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals said. "Californians pay premiums and fund Medi-Cal and other public programs, and they deserve to have confidence that their dollars are being used to improve care, expand access, and strengthen safety nets — not quietly routed through investment portfolios in ways that undermine public health and harm the very communities these nonprofits are meant to serve."

"We came to Kaiser dreaming of healing patients, supporting families, and being there in the hardest moments of people's lives," said Iris Henderson, a registered nurse at Kaiser Panorama City. "What we didn't dream about was being exhausted, burned out, misused, and disrespected — working unsafe shifts, filing thousands of staffing reports, and watching preventable crises happen every single day."

However, Kaiser responded on Thursday saying it "does not have any direct investment in CoreCivic or The GEO Group or other private prison or detention center companies. In addition, organized labor has had a representative on our largest investment fund, the pension and trust fund, for most of the past three decades."

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