If you catch yourself a bad case of pneumonia and you’re a Kaiser member, get ready for a rough ride. According to a story in the Los Angeles Times, a new state report has listed the 28 hospitals with the highest pneumonia mortality rates – and five Kaiser hospitals make the loser’s list. Times reporter Francisco Vara-Orta writes that the average mortality at the worst-performing hospitals is a dismaying 17.2 percent. (Hey, that’s almost one in five!) But before you go all rheumey and panicky, consider this: the five Kaiser charnel houses are all in the Central Valley and the Inland Empire. Tough break for them, but at least the air quality is nice. Oh, wait – never mind.
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