Aloha!

Current Events:

1.  Maui County Council will vote, September 11, on a single payer reso and bill, which includes funding the Hawaii Health Authority and in part 2, the content of HB1462, which establishes the first domino for single payer: an admin-simple Self Insured Health Insurance system for public employees. If implemented, this will prove that a health insurance system with less 'insurance health insurance payment complexity costs less than more health insurance complexity.'

If passed, this bill will advance to HSAC, the association of all four counties in the state of Hawaii, for their 2021 legislative agenda. To testify in favor, send an email before 9:00 am tomorrow to: county.clerk@mauicounty.us and testify Re: CR 20-111, Re Single Payer Healthcare, Please pass this bill, plus, any reasons you wish to give.  Such as, it calls for the funding of the Hawaii Health Authority. 

You can also call in. First come first serve, the line starts at 8:45 am, and testimony starts at 9:00 am. Call (408) 317-9253 Meeting code: 295235670

2. Join the Sept 14, 6:00 pm Town Hall: Fixing Health Insurance in Hawaii

Zoom link 4 Sept 14 Fixing Health Insurance Town Hall (yes it adds up to single payer!)

Representative Romy Cachola will explain how HB1462 offers to save the state, the tax payers, physician clinics and hospitals hundreds of millions of dollars, in one narrowly focused way: replacing the health insurance for public employees with a new Self Insured Health Insurance which will use administratively simple payment processes.

Representatives Tina Wildberger, Amy Peruso, and new representatives Adrian Tam, Jeanne Kapela, Michael Chapman, Trish La Chica, and perhaps more will share their personal perspectives and reasons for supporting the Hawaii Health Authority.

If you have had frustrations with getting an appointment because most clinics are not accepting Medicaid, or if you've been laid off and then presented with a $1,200 per month COBRA bill, or whatever frustration you've had with health insurance in Hawaii, please join and share.

Most of our health insurance frustrations relate to one thing: physicians cannot afford to accept Medicaid or Medicare as more than a small fraction of their practice, so they do their best to avoid Medicaid and Medicare patients. Our physicians are quitting. Retiring. Leaving the state, because the complexity of health insurance payment processes costs them too much.  

There are other issues. Denial of coverage comes up. Surprise billing, etc.  

The solution is as simple as replacing our current system with an administratively streamlined system, and that is what the Hawaii Health Authority proposes to do.

HB1462 is a bill which passed the house last year, and crossed over in 2020. Technically, it still has a slim thread to hang on to, if the legislature has an October special session. If they do have a special session, the legislators will be cranky, and they will not want to take a look at anything like saving hundreds of millions of dollars, or helping ensure that people can use their health insurance. That will be nearly too much to ask of them.

Let's ask anyway.  

We need Governor Ige to call for an October special session.

We need the senate to hear and pass House Bill 1462.

We need Governor Ige and the leadership of the legislature to agree to support the existing Hawaii Health Authority, and to appoint as its nine board members physicians who understand why HMSA's Managed Care model is the cause of our current high costs. HMSA sets the pace. The private contractors for Medicaid followed suit. As for Medicare, in 2015 congress passed a law called MACRA, the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015. This added complex private insurance payment nonsense to Medicare, which is why in 2016, 47% of physicians in Hawaii refused to accept new Medicare patients.

This is all very simple:

Less health insurance complexity costs less than more health insurance complexity.

Feel free to submit ideas and strategies for supporting the advancement of single payer healthcare here in Hawaii, and in congress.

Mahalo,

Dennis B Miller

Member, Medicare For All Hawaii

PS Word Press volunteer needed to help manage www.medicareforallhawaii.org

FB: Medicare For All Hawaii