Aloha!

M4A Candidates Night!

July 20, 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm

Join zoom meeting here:

Zoom Invite for M4A Hawaii & HDP Health Committee Candidates Night July 20, 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm

Candidates promoting Medicare For All and the Hawaii Health Authority:

For CD2:  Noelle Famera, State: Representative Mizuno, Represrentative Cachola, Representative Perruso, Representative Wildberger, Becky Gardner, Shannon Matson, Vicky Parker Kam, Colehour Bondera, Jeanne Kapela, Kim Coco Iwamoto, Mayor Candidates: Ernest Caravalho, Audrey Keesing, with more to come, just ask to join.
All candidates who support M4A and the HHA are welcome to speak

Candidates at city, state, and federal level who support Medicare For All and the Hawaii Health Authority are invited to express their reasons why and their plans for how to make healthcare justice our new reality.

Endorsements will not be given, however, the public needs to hear from candidates who prioritize the public good over a disastrous status quo; are you one of those?

Our pov is that the primary causes of disastrously high healthcare costs are:

Massive administrative costs due to the USA allowing 900 health insurance companies to do the job one single paying insurance company could do, and does very well in other nations that pay 1/2 per capita what we pay.
The absence of a national formulary for negotiating prescription drug prices, which every industrialized nation has, except the USA.

Therefore, we assert that a public option, which just means that we then have 901 insurance companies, will not help. It won't lower admin costs or do what the VA does, which is, to negotiate drug prices, and as a result, pay 40% less than the private sector for prescription drugs.   A public option just adds one more set of software for providers to buy, and imagining that it's copays will be less oppressive than COBRA is not realistic.  

We are an unofficial community of single payer supporters, including the Health Committee of the Hawaii Democratic Party, Medicare 4 All Hawaii, Young Progressives Demanding Action, Healthcare For All Hawaii, Our Revolution Hawaii, and others.

Each candidate will share their thoughts in the first 75 minutes, and then we will have a 45 minute general discussion, with Q&A.

If debate is desired, please request a debate forum. However, challenges and questions are welcome during the discussion.

Local physicians will assist with the Q&A, especially regarding how the Hawaii Health Authority offers a path for the state to save $350 million dollars per year by setting up admin-simple Self Insured health insurance systems for public employees and Medicaid.

If private businesses are allowed to buy into this new system, the cost of business will go down, healthcare quality and access will go up, and the causes of clinic closures will be eliminated.

After the new system proves itself, the reduced cost of healthcare will obviously cause a reassessment of why the state is pre-funding EUTF towards an $8 billion goal. The EUTF currently has around $3.5 billion. Recently, 29 other states switched to Self Insured and ceased pre-funding. This resulted in moderate to significant savings, it depends on whether the system designer is single payer friendly or ACA friendly. The risk of ceasing to pre-fund EUTF is, what happens during a revenue crisis? That is why the current $3.5 billion should remain in the fund, for emergencies, in the event the state has a revenue shortfall.

The state could safely protect the EUTF by continuing to maintain a large $3-4 billion EUTF reserve if it were able to achieve significant savings from the HHA's proposed Self Insured system.

Right now, if the state simply paused pre-funding the annual $500 million amount, that would free up $500 million for other uses, such as, not cutting teacher pay.

This is a question which Governor Ige and the legislature's leadership appear reluctant to discuss, because it would replace HMSA for public employee health insurance. However, under HMSA's version of Managed Care, and the similar insurance systems employed by MedQuest Hawaii's private contractors, plus the increased admin costs imposed in 2015 on Medicare from MACRA, we have a physician shortage. Physicians are going bankrupt or quitting their private practice because they cannot afford these administrative assaults our insurance giants have imposed.  

We must demand that candidates stand up and say No! to our perverse health insurance status quo, so that we can stop overpaying while being under served.

Happily, at the city level, recently, due to Public Citizen, National Nurses Union, and others, 35 cities have passed resolutions endorsing Medicare For All. In the words of a New Orleans council member, "we cannot afford not to demand that congress pass Medicare For All."

Let's urge our city and county candidates to support two resolutions:

1. Endorsing HR1384 Medicare For All

2. Endorsing the recent Hawaii Health Authority report which details $350 million in savings from Self Insured for state employees and Medicaid.

(After establishing these admin-simple Self Insured systems, the state could allow all businesses to buy in, resulting in better healthcare delivery at a savings around 15-30%. This would be a dramatic economic stimulus which also resulted in universal healthcare. Medicare Advantage could also be folded in.)

Regarding those who feel that a public option is a step towards Medicare For All, please believe, it is not. All new public options, such as the Medicaid Buy In bill Senator Schatz has proposed, do nothing to address or acknowledge the fact that we are currently spending around 30% of all healthcare dollars on non medical admin. 15% on the payer side, 15% on the provider side. Without lowering the current costs which are forcing clinics out of business, we will be left with rearranged deck chairs on a sinking ship.  

The other major source of savings from MFA is the repealing of Medicare Part D, which prohibits Medicare from negotiating prescription drug prices.   In its place MFA creates a national formulary for negotiating prescription drug prices.  

The public option leaves Part D in place; that is not a step in the right direction.

Currently American exceptionalism means that the USA is the only industrialized nation without such a national drug price negotiation formulary. However, our VA does negotiate prices, and as a result, pays 40% less than the private sector. So, in a way, all we really need to do is just adopt the VA's drug pricing system!

A public option just adds one more admin burden on providers. One more set of software, one more network, one more price list onto our existing crowd of 900 health insurance companies. We don't need one more insurance company; we need to have only one.  

Just one, for all.  

HR1384 Medicare For All

To be a candidate speaker, please respond to this email.

Feel free to urge your candidate to join us on our  7/20 Candidates for M4A Night.

FaceBook Event Invite with line up:

M4A Candidate Night Round Two, 7/20, 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm

Mahalo!

Dennis B Miller

On behalf of the Health Committee of the Hawaii Democratic Party

http://www.medicareforallhawaii.org

 https://www.facebook.com/medicareforallhawaii