Hawaii Health Connector Secret Rates Revealed? HMSA Premium Jumps 44%
Hawaii Health Connector: Six Legislative Committees to Discuss ‘Concerns’
ULI Fellowship: Caldwell to Select Land Use Challenge
Sequestration Report: Reduced Funding is Just the Beginning of a New Reality for Hawaii
Day 4: $205M Health Connector Still Fails Miserably
SA: Software problems prevented consumers from viewing plans and prices on the state's health insurance exchange known as the Hawaii Health Connector at the start of open enrollment Tuesday.
But consumers have been able to view individual policy rates on hmsa.com and Kaiser Permanente Hawaii's buykp.org. Small-group rates are not available online, but employers can get quotes from the insurers in person or over the phone.
HMSA and Kaiser are the only two carriers participating on the new online marketplace, a key provision of President Barack Obama's health reform law, designed to match qualified individuals with subsidized coverage.
HMSA saw roughly 50,000 visitors to its site from Tuesday through noon Thursday, up from about 28,000 in the same period last week. It also received more than 1,200 calls related to the federal law....
Consumers can enroll directly with the insurers but won't be able to apply for tax credits to reduce insurance costs unless they purchase plans through the Connector, which has been unable to load the rates properly on the website and won't release the information until the problem is fixed....
The Connector, which received $205 million in federal grants, including $53 million to build and operate the exchange over four years, didn't indicate when the system would be operational.
read ... Connector Still a Complete Failure
Third Time's The Charm: Rep Karen Awana hit with $8500 campaign fine
HNN: State Rep. Karen Awana is in hot water with the Hawaii Campaign Spending Commission again.
The Nanakuli Democrat faces an $8,500 fine for failing to account for 50 expenditures made by her campaign since 2011.
"She didn't report the contributions and she reported no expenditures when she had expenditures," said Gary Kam, the commission's general counsel.
"Some of the transactions involved checks written to the candidate herself and to cash."
The questionable purchases --- totaling nearly $6,200 -- included meals at Pizza Hut, Denny's, Tanioka's and other restaurants.
Awana also used campaign money to buy items at Walmart, Jamba Juice and Baskin Robbins.
"We've been trying for a while to get her to comply with our disclosure laws. It's been difficult," said Kam.
"We want to make sure the candidate is not using campaign funds for personal use."...
The commission has already levied several fines against Awana for failing to accurately report campaign contributions and expenditures. She was fined $6,800 last year for similar reporting problems and $1,900 in 2011.
Kam says Awana still owes about $800 for her past fines.
The commission says it uncovered the questionable expenditures after Awana bounced a check intended to pay for a previous fine issued by the commission. At the time, Awana's campaign said it has about $16,000 in its bank accounts.
Subpoenas for the Awana campaign's bank account at Central Pacific Bank turned up the most recent discrepancies.
read ... State lawmaker faces new campaign fines
Bill 59: OK to Sleep on Sidewalk only if you Can Prove You Tried to get Shelter Space
Bill 59 states "no person shall lie down on a public sidewalk, or on a tarp, towel, sheet, blanket, sleeping bag, bedding, chair, bench, tent floor or any other object or material located on a public sidewalk."
Councilman Stanley Chang said he introduced the bill to ensure public sidewalks are kept free for all members of the public to traverse, adding that the measure includes language that exempts the homeless.
The bill lists several exceptions, including people with a medical condition or emergency, those engaged in "expressive activity" and those who can prove that they attempted but failed to obtain overnight accommodations from a homeless shelter on the day a citation or arrest is to take place.
But members of the protest group (de)Occupy Honolulu and other advocates for the homeless criticized the bill as being unfair to those without permanent shelter. They said a provision requiring the homeless to show proof that they attempted to obtain shelter is particularly objectionable because it tries to pressure them into shelters. (LOL!)
read ... Pressure into Shelters
Lege vs Abercrombie? Politicians taking note of worries about HCDA
Borreca: Lawmakers are looking at the troubling payoff down the road with a new community with a density that could grow to 30,000 new residents in the next 15 years, according to the HCDA's own environmental impact statement.
Some legislators are looking at Kakaako as ground zero for blighted, unsustainable overdevelopment, while others, led by Gov. Neil Abercrombie, hail the area as the beginning of a third city, standing with Honolulu and Kapolei, as Honolulu adapts to 21st-century high-rise living.
"The legislators have been getting involved because they are hearing from their constituents. It has been a crash course for all of us," said Rep. Scott Saiki, the House Democratic leader....
Saiki knows that there is more to the issue than just one group of residents complaining about a new condo going up nearby. The issue goes straight to next year's political races.
"It is a larger issue; it is going to have to be legislative oversight because the administration isn't doing it," Saiki said.
The issue could turn on how much Abercrombie wants to defend the HCDA. As Saiki notes, the nine-person board has only seven members on it now and four of the seven are Abercrombie Cabinet members, so the HCDA today is an Abercrombie creation. How to measure its performance is a decision for next year's voters to make.
SA: Public gets 2 more chances to comment on condo project
read ... Politicians taking note of the Peasants
Star-Adv: Commission should vet all grants
SA: The leadership of the City Council seems unwilling to support the newly created system for evaluating grant requests, judging by the rhetoric coming out of Honolulu Hale.
Grants in aid have provided the conduit Council members have used to pipe appropriations to nonprofit organizations in their districts. The money available for such grants fell short in the wake of the economic recession, but voters enabled a minimum amount to be set aside for the grants, even during hard times.
That mechanism, enabled by a City Charter amendment voters approved in 2012, established a guarantee for nonprofits: half of 1 percent of annual city revenues. A process for vetting requests also was authorized.
The Council should allow this system to work, rather than pursuing ways to get around it....
It also insulates the process from accusations of corruption, and that is something that must not be dispensed with lightly. Doing so would undermine the whole purpose of a review that the voters clearly endorsed.
read ... Commission should vet all grants
Pay Inches Up in Office of Hawaiian Affairs
CB: Chief Executive Officer Kamanopono Crabbe started to receive an annual salary of $140,004 on July 1, which marked the beginning of the fiscal year. He is the highest-paid OHA employee.
Crabbe’s predecessor, Clyde Namuo, had an annual salary of $129,000 until he retired in December 2011.
The eight trustees will again make $55,440. The board’s chair, Colette Machado, will receive $63,204.
That’s about what OHA’s 150 employees earn. OHA workers’ salaries inched up from $59,430 on average in 2012 to $60,786 in 2013.
The overall amount of money that OHA spent on salaries nudged upward at a similar rate, rising from $8.91 million last year to $9.12 this year.
read ... OHA Pays
Shon: Three Ways to Derail the Common Core Standards
CB: Without structural change in schools, the Common Core Standards are doomed...Traditional bell schedules, sometimes determined by collective bargaining agreements, will continue to stifle and negate the benefits of Common Core....A second barrier is that we want students to work in groups to solve problems, but we test them individually...In 2013, America still does not thoughtfully assess student achievements in science, or social studies, or music, or art, or economics, or civics....
SA: Co-founder of a new charter school wants students to develop "the mind of a navigator"
read ... Three Ways to Derail
City prosecutor suggests new prison to reduce crime
HNN: Honolulu's prosecutor is proposing that the state build a new prison in an effort to reduce crime rates -- a proposal that drew applause from Kailua residents concerned about an increase in criminal activity.
More than a hundred people jammed the Kailua Neighborhood Board meeting to hear from prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro. Some of them were crime victims themselves.
Rich Tilghman told Kaneshiro that he had been burglarized by a repeat offender.
"Arrested 47 times for the same crime. Forty-seven times," said Tilghman, to audible gasps from the crowd. "And since then the same individual travels around Kailua -- he's a free man to this day - and taunts my family," he told Kaneshiro.
"I'm not here to debate statistics or to try to assign blame," said another resident, Mike Shire. "I do know that there were 82 crimes within a one mile radius of my home in September. Eighty-two crimes. This is excessive by any measure."
KHON: New Prison?
read ... City prosecutor suggests new prison to reduce crime
Out Again: Felon who took cameraman hostage faces fresh charges
SA: A 48-year-old felon who was arrested 21 years ago for taking a television cameraman hostage is back in custody.
This time, Ulysses Kim —who in 1999 received $199,000 in a court settlement for his mistreatment while in Halawa Correctional Facility — is facing charges of first-degree car theft and first- and second-degree terroristic threatening.
Kim was scheduled to be arraigned Thursday in Circuit Court, but the proceedings were postponed until Monday because he is in Oahu Community Correctional Center's medical facility.
Kim is being held at the Kalihi prison facility, unable to post $50,000 bail.
Police said Kim on Sept. 23 entered the car of a 58-year-old man in Waipahu and tried to steal it.
The man confronted the suspect, who then tried to flee, but the man held on to him until police arrived....
Kim has an extensive criminal record dating back to 1984, when he was first convicted for robbery. He has convictions for eight felones and two misdemeanors.
He was arrested again in 2007 for failing a drug test while on parole.
Last year Kim was arrested and convicted of misdemeanor car theft and served 30 days in jail....
read ... Soft on Crime
Attorneys: Usual Suspects Team up With Anti-GMO Side
CB: Paul Achitoff - Managing Attorney, EarthJustice ; George Kimbrell - Senior Attorney, Center For Food Safety ; Peter Schey - President/Attorney, Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law Justice; Steven Levinson (Retired - Hawaii Supreme Court); Alan Murakami - Attorney (personal capacity); Teresa Tico - Attorney and former President Kauai Bar Association; Kapua Sproat - Attorney and Law Professor, Richardson School of Law; Harold Bronstein - Attorney, Kauai ; Elif Beall - Attorney, Kauai ...
PBN: Transparency will help seed companies shape the debate
Read ... Their Excuses
Hu Honua Biomass Plant a Major Source of CO, NO? -- EPA
HTH: “The entire project should be re-examined,” said Steve Strauss, adding that the commission should look at revoking its permit.
In addition to opposition from neighbors, the $70 million project has faced other problems, including a labor dispute and a civil suit filed in Delaware.
The Environmental Protection Agency has also raised concerns about whether the project falls under the 250-ton cap for minor sources of carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxide.
The labor dispute involved jurisdictional issues between labor unions working on the project.
The suit filed in September alleges that the owners attempted to defraud the former majority owner by attempting to backout of an agreement to pay $5.5 million following state approval of a power purchase agreement with Hawaii Electric Light Co.
HELCO approved the 20-year power purchase agreement in May 2012.
The 21.5 mgw, produced by burning chipped eucalyptus trees or other biomass, would be enough to provide 10 percent of the Big Isle’s energy or 14,000 homes.
The plant is expected to process 260,000 tons of biomass and displace 250,000 barrels of oil each year.
read ... Lots of Pollution
Oahu juvenile crime down on teacher furlough days
AP: Juvenile assault and drug-related arrests on Oahu declined during the 2009-2010 school year when Hawaii furloughed teachers and canceled classes on 17 Fridays to save money during the economic downturn, a University of Hawaii economist said Thursday.
read ... Furloughs
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