Aloha, The Hawaii Democratic Party's Kupuna Caucus is sponsoring a January 6 meeting to promote a Universal Health Care bill at the party HQ on South Street. If you are on FB: https://www.facebook.com/events/1271201896269547/ If not, the address and parking instructions follow below: If you can't come, please join the conference call. Lets provide the will to fix health care in Hawaii in 2017. Dennis Miller ************************** Aloha! To prepare for the 2017 State Legislative Session, The Kupuna Caucus of the Democratic Party of Hawai`i is hosting a presentation on Single Payer Health Insurance aka "Medicare For All" for Hawai`i. The event is on Friday, January 6, 2017, from 6-9 pm at the Democratic Party of Hawai`i headquarters; address and parking information below. We will be providing a phone-in audio link with on-line visuals and that information also follows. The many problems with the Affordable Care Act (Obama Care) and the failure of the State Health Exchange, the further degradation of Medicaid, worsening shortages of Hawai`i physicians in almost every specialty and widespread demoralization of those that remain due to impending "value-based" payment changes have only made it even more difficult to practice medicine in Hawai`i. Making matters worse, our insurance co-pays and basic premiums continue to rise with no end in sight, restrictions on benefits are the norm and fewer and fewer Hawai`i physicians are accepting Medicare patients due to the additional staffing required to perform the increased data reporting and the resulting reduced reimbursement penalties for the failure to do so. If you are dependent on Medicare and have not yet run into this situation, you soon will. Our hospitals are also in financial trouble and they are being penalized for early readmissions which they cannot prevent because they can't find enough doctors to care for discharged patients in the community to keep them from coming back. Given all of this plus the great uncertainty as to what the Donald Trump Administration will do to health care once installed, it is time to re-assess and admit that current cost-containment efforts in Hawai`i are failing to achieve our goals in terms of access to and quality of health care. What can you do? Please join us for the presentation by Hawai`i Dr. Stephen Kemble with an open mic Q & A to follow. Learn more about Dr. Kemble HERE: http://www.pnhp.org/states/hawaii Sincerely, Scott Foster, Chair P.S. IF you want to quickly learn more about Single Payer, see the Hawai`i Advocates For Consumer Rights page on Single Payer HERE:http://advocatesforconsumerrights.org/single-payer/ The Democratic Party of Hawai`i HQ address is: 627 South Street, Honolulu NOTE: The actual building is down a short driveway on the Diamondhead side of South Street directly across from the fire station. IF NOT DISABLED, PLEASE DO NOT PARK IN THE SMALL PARKING LOT THERE. There is ample street parking and a large low-cost public parking lot on the Diamondhead/Ewa corner of Queen and South Street. To use the phone in audio, dial (United States only) (712) 451-0011 and then enter the access code 444031#. The power point presentation may be downloaded HERE. http://scottfoster.org/powerpoint/PhysicanPaymentOptionsPowerPoint.pptx