The San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a package of health care rates for public employees and retirees Tuesday, including a controversial 5.25 percent increase to Kaiser Permanente rates.
Some of the most liberal supervisors, at the behest of the city's largest labor union, had threatened to hold up the rate hikes, citing the Kaiser increase and the health care giant's lack of transparency when it came to setting its prices. But officials from the city's Health Service System warned that rejecting the rates could threaten health care coverage for 46,000 Kaiser members and possibly jeopardize all 108,000 people covered by HSS.
On Tuesday, HSS Director Catherine Dodd, who has been on leave while she battles mantle cell lymphoma, appeared at the board to appeal to supervisors to pass the rates. Dodd, who is bald from her cancer treatment, said she is a Kaiser member and would be devastated if she had to change providers next year.
"People's lives are stake," she said.
As part of negotiations with Kaiser in recent weeks, the health care giant pledged to take several steps to increase rate transparency in the coming year, as well as invest in a "multiyear wellness plan" that it will pay to study. All 11 board members have also signed on to a resolution, which will be considered next week, urging Kaiser to immediately begin negotiating 2015 rates and to be more forthcoming about how its rates are set. Supervisor Mark Farrell is also working on legislation that would require health care providers to furnish the city with specific information about how they set their rates.
Also Tuesday, Supervisor John Avalos introduced an ordinance that would prohibit San Francisco law enforcement officials from detaining someone at the request of the federal government solely because they are suspected of being an undocumented immigrant.
The ordinance, which is cosponsored by seven other supervisors, is modeled after statewide legislation by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, which was vetoed by Gov. Jerry Brown last year. The proposal tackles the city's policy in relation to a controversial federal program, dubbed Secure Communities, which seeks to require local law enforcement to continue to detain people because of their immigration status after they have otherwise been cleared for release from custody.
California Attorney General Kamala Harris last year issued an opinion stating that the federal detainers are simply requests, not requirements.
Marisa Lagos is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: mlagos@sfchronicle.com
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