"My biggest fear is when a kidney comes up, they're going to say, 'Your condition is so deteriorated, we're not going to give you one,'" says a patient at Kaiser's transplant program. Three patients and their families filed lawsuits against the HMO Thursday alleging that problems at its San Francisco transplant center caused them serious harm. One of the patients, Ronald Hayes, died while awaiting a transplant. On Wednesday the health plan said it would pay for patients to have operations outside of its network.
- read this LA Times article