Kaiser Retiree Takes New Job--With Kaiser

When Frank Murray announced he would step down this year as head doctor for Kaiser Permanente’s 2.3 million members in Southern California, he said he planned to do two things: retire and go back to school to pursue his lifelong love of astronomy.

With the managed care revolution in full swing, however, the longtime Kaiser medical director found a bunch of job offers coming his way. The best one, it turned out, came from Kaiser itself.

On Jan. 3, just four days after he is leaving his current post, Murray will report to work as a consultant to Kaiser in Atlanta.

“Managed care is something that’s relatively new in Atlanta,” Murray said. “The health care market is not nearly as mature as in Southern California.”

Murray has seen many changes in the local health care field since he joined the Southern California Permanente Medical Group in 1971 as a general internist at the Harbor City Medical Center. Since he became medical director in 1981, Kaiser’s membership has exploded. Murray is credited with helping to build Kaiser of Southern California--which (after Kaiser Permanente of Northern California) is the nation’s second-largest group medical practice--into a health care model for the nation.

Murray, a strong advocate of reforming the medical system, said he is not sure Congress will have the political will to enact the changes he deems critical: universal coverage and a program that will slow the upward spiral of medical costs.

“I have some real concern whether anything meaningful will happen in the political process in the next 12 months,” he said. “If we don’t fix those things, then we’ve not solved the problem.”

When he finishes his work in Atlanta, Murray and his wife, Ione, plan to retire in New Mexico or Arizona.