Health Care

State ranks third lowest in the country for adult smoking and second lowest for youth tobacco use....

Hundreds of thousands of consumers have their health insurance applications declined each year according to a 2010 congressional study....

• Queens: 54 patients waiting
• Maui Memorial: 41 patients waiting
• Kuakini Hospital: 20 patients waiting

As public audits recently revealed, it's difficult to trust the Department of Health to spend our tax dollars wisely....  

...who is going to be held responsible if one of their patients decides to take out some poor store clerk? Is the shooter's doctor now a potential target for a lawsuit? Can the shooter claim at his trial that he was not properly counseled by his physician?

In 2011, he had attempted to pass a soda tax under the Orwellian title “Sugary Beverage Healthy Hawaii Fee,” but the state legislature saw through the obfuscating rhetoric and defeated it.

A 12 ounce soda would cost 12 cents more....

Many small-business owners haven't yet realized that the way they structure their firm in 2013 could determine their status under the law in a year's time....

“Given the weak track record of federal mental health programs, states should exercise primary responsibility for determining appropriate mental health services, which will entail eliminating restrictions currently imposed by the federal government.”

ER visits spiked when the ban went into effect. Relative to other counties, ER admissions increase by at least one fourth, and deaths exhibit a similar increase....

"Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health." 

Approximately four years ago, the Hawaii State Legislature commissioned Stroudwater Associates to evaluate our Hawaii Health System Safety Net Hospitals....

According to the data, there were no decreases in emergency admissions or inpatient charges....

...Maui County Office on Aging, will expand ongoing transitions efforts to reduce Medicare hospital readmissions....

In 2013, the tax increases in Obamacare will increasingly conspire against kitchen-table family healthcare decisions....

The editorial board of The Washington Post is absolutely right: “Medicare as we know it is not sustainable,” and the “ultimate solution” is structural reform.

The Supreme Court's surprise ruling on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has left many observers wondering about the implications of the ruling on the law itself....

Hobby Lobby gained national attention when its leadership announced they would not bow to the Obama Administration’s violation of their religious liberty....

If enrollment in consumer-directed plans increased to 50 percent, there would be an annual savings of $57 billion....

With a new study pointing the finger at high fructose corn syrup as a culprit in America’s explosive epidemic of obesity, it is important to remember just why we are consuming so much of this commodity as opposed to table sugar....

...update on the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and healthcare transformation in Hawaii....

Hawai‘i secures conditional approval from U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to operate a state-based health insurance exchange....

The mother claims that her daughters teacher and state administrators not only failed to investigate the abuse that occurred on and off school grounds, but conspired to cover it up, and then suspended her.

A growing number of hospital systems are moving to start their own insurance plans, aiming to broaden their roles and prepare for the changes coming under the federal health care overhaul, says the Wall Street Journal....

OHA is partnering with The Queen’s Medical Center, Waianae Coast Comprehensive Center, the Hawaii Department of Health, the Department of Native Hawaiian Health and Hawaii Medical Service Association....

The Healthcare Association of Hawaii (HAH) invites the public to participate in the Hawaii Community Feedback Survey.

10th annual Ready or Not? Protecting the Public from Diseases, Disasters, and Bioterrorism report, Hawaii scored 4 out of 10 ....

Experiment with cash or cash-like incentives to encourage people to adopt healthy behaviors in the form conditional cash transfers....

“We have emptied the nation's hospitals, gutted state and local mental health programs, and turned involuntary treatment into a debate point instead of using it as a viable option to prevent tragedy...."

Tomorrow is an important day for Obamacare. It’s the deadline for states to declare their intentions about setting up their own health insurance exchanges....

Your medical plan is facing an unexpected expense, so you probably are, too. It's a new, $63-per-head fee to cushion the cost of covering people with pre-existing conditions....

According to the 23rd Edition of United Health Foundation’s 2012 America’s Health Rankings, Hawaii is No. 2 this year, up from No. 3 in 2011, in a ranking of all 50 states’ health data....

Insurance premiums could increase by thousands of dollars because of a new tax in President Obama's health care law....

State-based health exchange selects IT contractor and names agency of record for research, communication strategy and public relations...

· DATE: Tuesday, December 11, 2012

· TIME: 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm

· PLACE: Conference Room 229, State Capitol, 415 South Beretania Street

Hawaii this year will collect $186 million in revenue from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend just 4.8 percent of it on tobacco prevention programs....

...every day now brings another business owner in the news talking about cutting workers’ hours or making other cost-cutting moves in anticipation of Obamacare’s impact in 2013....

The spending ranges from less than 8 percent in Hawaii, where nursing home use is low, to more than 60 percent in North Dakota....

Hawaii was the only state to show a significant increase in the number of uninsured children from 2009-2011....

Governor Linda Lingle signed, SB 665 SDI HD2 CD1 which prohibits "a person representing a health maintenance organization under chapter 4320, a mutual benefit society issuing individual and group hospital or medical service plans under chapter 432, or any other health care organization" from membership on the Council....

It took a Federal Freedom of Information Act request to find out, but that is the message Hawai`i Free Press received from federal officials.

In December of 1994, one month after Oregon voters passed Measure 16, "physician assisted death," into law, Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) responded.
Ethix Corp., an HMO, announced that they "welcomed broad coverage for assisted suicide in a medical economic system already burdened."

The University of Hawaii continues to publish groundbreaking discoveries from their mesothelioma research efforts. But does the precarious state of our American research universities put mesothelioma research in jeopardy?

As City Councilwoman, I will continue my work with stakeholders to expedite the process to reopen the former HMC location because nothing is more important than the health and safety of our community.

Abercrombie’s campaign platform portrays abandonment of the Prepaid Act as a step to “Develop a System of Universal Healthcare.”  It is exactly the opposite.  In the fine print, Abercrombie focuses squarely on managing the State’s finances so “costs are controlled so that we can collectively afford the system and pay for it in a way that is fair and sustainable. We need to create efficiencies out of the current incoherence in our system, create incentives and opportunities for cost-effective preventive healthcare….”

It’s all about the money.

“Here in Hawai'i, we already have our Prepaid Health Care Act, which enables a vast majority of our residents to be insured...."  (Then why is he trying to dismantle it?)

In Honolulu, the Planned Parenthood counselor “Rogue” tells the woman it is okay to have multiple abortions of girl pregnancies so long as the abortions are spaced far enough apart....

...the bill would help doctors who make money prescribing narcotic pain relievers ....

... imminent storm that is about to occur due to simultaneous implementation of multiple programs that will create extraordinary financial and administrative burden ....

“Forty years ago, Hawai'i’s groundbreaking Prepaid Health Care Act gave us an enduring advantage in health insurance coverage,” said Dr. Tsang. “However .... "