• Donate
  • Subscribe
  • logo
  • logo
  • REGIONS
    • North County
    • Central County
    • South County
  • NEWS
    • Economy
    • Education
    • Emergencies & Disasters
    • Government
    • Health & Wellness
    • Housing & Homelessness
    • Outdoors
    • Podcasts
    • Politics & Elections
    • Safety, Security & Justice
    • Transportation
    • Water, Power & Waste
    • Youth Media
  • ARTS & CULTURE
    • Culture
    • Dance
    • Food
    • Music
    • Theater
    • Visual Arts
  • COLUMNISTS
    • Norberto Santana, Jr.
    • Anne Marie Panoringan
    • Paul Hodgins
    • Julie Leopo
  • INVOLVEMENT
    • Community Opinion
    • Press Releases
  • ABOUT
    • Mission & Values
    • Civic Engagement
    • Impact & Honors
    • Inside the Newsroom
    • Staff & Contact Us
    • Support & Partnerships
    • Archives
  • Donate
  • Subscribe
We have been your lifeline during the pandemic, economic fallout, wildfires, protests and the election. Support us today with a tax-deductible donation.
CalOptima

Dr. Kenneth Bell Played a Key Role in Forming CalOptima

By Thy Vo Thy Vo | July 23, 2018
62 Shares
Share59
Tweet3
Reddit
Email

Dr. Kenneth Bell, a former Kaiser Permanente executive who played a pivotal role in the founding and development of CalOptima, the county’s health plan for low income residents, died July 14 after a prolonged illness at the age of 82.

Bell, who joined Kaiser in 1968 as an obstetrician-gynecologist, came to Orange County as the chief of obstetrics and gynecology. He rose in the ranks to become the medical director for Kaiser’s Orange County program in 1988, a position he held for 14 years.

Throughout his tenure as medical director, Bell continued to work a weekly overnight shift, tending to women in labor and delivering babies, according to an obituary released by his family.

During Orange County’s bankruptcy in December 1994, a team of roughly 20 CalOptima employees were working to get the proposed health organization off the ground on a shoestring budget, said Greg Buchert, president and CEO of Blue Shield’s Medi-Cal and MediCare program, who also served as chief operating officer at CalOptima between 2005 and January 2012.

Bell, while the medical director for Kaiser, pushed the company to make an investment of $2 million to $3 million into CalOptima, a move which “kept the lights on and allowed us to stay afloat and secure some more funding,” Buchert said.

“It really did keep the organization alive to get launched in October 1995,” said Buchert. “And when it launched, it was the largest conversion of insurance for anybody in America at the time.”

Before CalOptima, few providers in Orange County accepted Medi-Cal insurance, leaving the few clinics that did accept government insurance swamped with long wait lines.

“It happened in a moment in time – here’s a pretty socially progressive concept of government-funded healthcare that was approved in Orange County, which was dramatically more conservative at the time,” said Buchert. “If it weren’t for the bankruptcy distracting people, I don’t know if CalOptima would have gotten off the ground.”

Today, CalOptima serves more than 780,000 county residents, according to its web site, and has a federal and state-funded annual budget of about $3.2 billion.

Bell held faculty positions at a number of California medical schools, and pushed for better training of nurse practitioners and nurse midwives at Kaiser. He is credited with introducing “family-oriented obstetrical care” at Kaiser, including birthing rooms that accommodate families through all stages of labor and delivery, according to his obituary.  

Years later, in 2001 after retiring from Kaiser, Bell joined CalOptima as its Chief Medical Officer.

Bell was a constant advocate for the agency and its mission of serving the county’s low-income residents, Buchert said, repeatedly telling anyone willing to listen about the county’s growing need for healthcare for the poor.

“His position was, ‘I’m embarrassed that in a county as rich and wealthy as it is, that has so many resources, that we have so many people that are so needy and we don’t take care of them the way that we should,’” Buchert said. “He would take on the naysayers and have tough conversations with them…he was always ready to discuss those [issues] in a sensitive, empathetic and logical manner.”

Bell served in that role until 2007, when he retired to serve in the same role for the Coalition of Orange County Community Clinics, a consortium of clinics that serve uninsured and underinsured Orange County residents.

While he always saw himself as a physician, Bell was adept at leveraging relationships in the medical, nonprofit and political community to improve CalOptima, Buchert said.

“He saw himself as responsible for the lives of the several hundred thousand members that we were serving,” Buchert said. “But he never lost that perspective of, ‘I’m a physician and I take care of patients.’”

Bell is survived by his wife Roberta, three daughters and four grandchildren.

Contact Thy Vo at [email protected] and follow her Twitter @thyanhvo.

Since you've made it this far,

You are obviously connected to your community and value good journalism. As an independent and local nonprofit, our news is accessible to all, regardless of what they can afford. Our newsroom centers on Orange County’s civic and cultural life, not ad-driven clickbait. Our reporters hold powerful interests accountable to protect your quality of life. But it’s not free to produce. It depends on donors like you.
Become a Supporter

DISCUSSION:

Have an opinion on this story? Join the conversation... In lieu of comments, we encourage readers to engage with us across a variety of mediums. Join the open conversation on our Facebook page. Message us via our website form or staff page. Send us a secure news tip. Share your thoughts in a community opinion piece.

ABOUT US: Mission | Editorial Policies | Contact Us | Funding | Privacy Policy

CORONAVIRUS: The latest Orange County news and information.

SUBTOPICS:
  • Countywide
  • Health & Wellness
  • Top Stories
  • CalOptima
  • Greg Buchert
  • Healthy Communities
  • Kaiser Permanente

RELATED STORIES:

  • Nguyen Blames Former CalOptima Executives for Agency’s Brain Drain

    Supervisor says the former CEO and COO purposely wooed away other top employees to hurt CalOptima. COO denies doing anything of the sort.

  • What’s the Story Behind CalOptima’s Brain Drain?

    When CEO Richard Chambers announced his resignation this month, he became the sixth top executive to leave Orange County’s $1.4-billion healthcare provider in less than a year.

Orange County's Nonprofit & Nonpartisan Newsroom

 

© Copyright 2021, Voice of OC

Voice of OC is a member of the Institute for Nonprofit News

Built with the Largo WordPress Theme from the Institute for Nonprofit News.

Back to top ↑