# Kaiser Permanente health insurance

17 Hacker News commenters recommended Kaiser Permanente health insurance and 20 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 8 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People recommend Kaiser Permanente for its integrated insurer-hospital model, standardized protocols and strong quality metrics. The most common caveat is weak preventive care and slow, uneven service.

## Why people recommend it

- Standardized protocols with strong quality metrics (4 comments): "Their secret sauce is their ability to standardize protocols throughout their entire organization." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48953181)) "Their quality metrics have increased steadily over the last 10 years" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48958210)) "their protocols are top notch as reflected by their quality metrics" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48958193))
- Cheaper than many alternatives (2 comments): "It's cheaper than the absolute cheapest scam insurances and will get you a decent level of care." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46052379)) "Choose Kaiser if your only other option is a cheap scan" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46078963))
- Good care and doctors (4 comments): "Kaiser is by far my best experience with healthcare in the US" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50133756)) "Kaiser (Nor Cal), has been amazing. I highly recommend them." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46052733)) "You actually get great level of care" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46052819))

## What people warn about

- Weak preventive care for many patients (2 comments): "HMOs (Kaiser specifically) will generally not provide any sort of preventative care in this area unless your numbers are very high" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45858697)) "he and his department did everything they could to discourage me from following up with a colonoscopy" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50307887))
- Scheduling and surgery delays (2 comments): "their scheduling system was dysfunctional — they were the better of the options my employer offered" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46604111)) "You should see how long their surgery departments are backed up!" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49333483))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Medicare](https://hackerapproved.com/p/medicare.md): 13 recommend
- [UnitedHealthcare health insurance](https://hackerapproved.com/p/unitedhealthcare.md): 5 recommend

## Where to get it

- [Visit the official site](https://healthy.kaiserpermanente.org/front-door)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Kaiser Permanente health insurance", https://hackerapproved.com/p/kaiser-permanente/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).