That is probably the best/fairest assessment so far. It should be noted that even within Kaiser SoCal, the different regions will be different: Kaiser SD is distinct from Kaiser OC is distinct from Kaiser LA is distinct from Kaiser IE. I know a few people at SD, and I also know a few that were there and left. Just how good a gig you think it is depends on your reference point. If you're used to AMC's or shady PP's, then Kaiser probably seems like Eden. Compared to the premier PP groups around though, it's pretty meh. It takes a certain type of person to be happy there. It's absolutely a factory worker clock in/clock out mentality where you are worker bee with minimal if any say as to how things are run. You have to be OK with that. The compensation package isn't so incredible in my mind. Starting salary (for a 40hr wk) is well under 300K. Yes, there's base retirement and healthcare on top of that, but if you want to max out that retirement package everybody talks about, then a significant chunk comes out of your salary. If you want to hit >400K, then be prepared to put in a lot of overtime approaching a 60hr week. Come to my shop and work that hard and you'll blow that Kaiser pay outta the water. You have to accumulate vacation time like any other corporate job. And, the "partner track" is much longer than most PP's.
I think the "competitiveness" is a little misleading as well. They'll say "we got 200 applicants for 1 position." That's because it's an open casting call, and people from all over send in their CV's. Compare that to that nice PP's in town who only interviewed 3 people, but those 3 were handpicked from the beginning. The other 197 dudes never even had a chance to get their foot in the door.
With Kaiser SD, there was a long stretch where they wouldn't straight up hire anyone - anyone new was forced into a per diem only role for an indeterminate amount of time(at 120$/hr) before a real job was ever offered. On top of that, they would only hire fellowship trained docs even if they had no need for that skillset and often didn't even do those types of cases. Then they realized they were paying extra fellowship bonus dollars to people for no reason, and they were opening a new hospital to boot. Suddenly it got pretty damn easy to land a gig there.
Kaiser SD is also in a sloooooow phase out of many of their CRNA's. They pay differential is so small between the docs and CRNA's, that it just doesn't make much financial sense for them to pay 2 people to cover a room. As the senior CRNA's retire, they are being replaced with docs, not new nurses.