Greg Adams, Kaiser CEO Big
bucks
at Kaiser?

March 19, 2026 -- Successful business executives sometimes prosper. Sometimes they prosper a lot. When the business is healthcare, should it be any different? It isn't. Yet we somehow feel that those who do healthcare work should be good Samaritans, working selflessly for the benefit of others; that there is something unseemly about becoming enriched by serving people who are suffering. We don't begrudge good salaries but somehow corporate profiteering -- OK in most industries -- is not OK in this one.

Kaiser is a case in point. It is of particular interest to me because I have been both a Kaiser patient (Kaiser calls them members) and an employee (RN and program manager). I was paid per industry standards but never saw opportunities to earn at Kaiser in other ways. Nor did I encounter any who do. Yet, in the upper echelons, they exist. While Kaiser doesn't create billionaire owners, it does have multimillionaire executives.

As a non-profit (I've called these NoPINOs) Kaiser doesn't pay dividends as do corporations and privately held firms, but nonprofits can legally pay executives high compensation when boards approve it. That's how the largest individual fortunes are created in the context of Kaiser.

A compilation of filings found that 30 Kaiser Health Executives Received $430 Million in Compensation (2017-2023) by Anne Paddock. Here are the top two:

  • Gregory Adams: Total Compensation 2017-2023: $82 million
  • Kathryn Lancaster: Total Compensation 2017-2023: $35 million
  • and 28 more

Kaiser has physician groups, some of which are for-profit partnerships, termed the Permanente Medical Groups. Most Kaiser MDs receive only salaries. However, the ones that are senior partners in the Permanente Medical Groups may share in profits and accumulate substantial wealth. Not billionaire fortunes but nonetheless substantial.

There are indeed billionaire fortunes made in US healthcare -- see Forbes' 2026 billionaires list which includes 51 Americans in healthcare industries. None of these are Kaiser people.

Go Kaiser!