Kaiser Permanente

The story of Kaiser Permanente is one of American ingenuity born from necessity. It began not in a gleaming hospital, but in the dust and heat of the Mojave Desert in 1933, where a young surgeon named Dr. Sidney Garfield opened a small clinic to care for workers building the Colorado River Aqueduct. Faced with patients who couldn't afford fee-for-service care, Dr. Garfield, with the backing of industrialist Henry J. Kaiser, pioneered a revolutionary prepayment system—a nickel a day for comprehensive coverage. This radical idea transformed the clinic from a financial burden into a sustainable model of preventative care.

When World War II erupted, Henry Kaiser brought this model to the shipyards of Richmond, California, and Portland, Oregon, to keep his tens of thousands of workers healthy and productive. The 'Sidney Garfield & Associates' medical group provided care that was accessible, affordable, and integrated. When the war ended and the shipyards closed, the doctors and the public didn't want to see this successful experiment end. In 1945, the program was opened to the community, officially birthing Kaiser Permanente. Today, what started in a desert clinic has grown into the nation's largest nonprofit integrated health care organization, serving millions of members with a mission that remains unchanged: to provide high-quality, affordable health care services and to improve the health of its members and the communities it serves.