Letter: Waikiki Rep Brower Threatening to Smash More Shopping Carts?
Supreme Court Rejects Kauai Springs Appeal
Aloha, Justice Acoba
Well Then, How Do We Stimulate Business?
Star-Adv: State Should Dump Obamacare Exchange
SA: Last week's candid presentation by the agency's interim executive director, Tom Matsuda, laid bare an even more fundamental problem with the whole setup. Matsuda made official what many people long suspected: There is simply no way this private nonprofit can stay afloat financially without a major bailout by Hawaii taxpayers.
And that should not be allowed by state lawmakers, because it would merely be throwing good money after bad. That, Matsuda told legislators, is because Hawaii has a far lower percentage of people lacking health insurance than most other states. That's an excellent condition, all thanks to our Prepaid Health Care Act.
As a result, he said, the islands simply lack the market of potential customers to make the Connector agency sustainable as it was originally planned, through small fees assessed on each enrollment processed through the exchange. And with only 4,467 people signed up, the revenue shortfall can't be overcome.
The state Senate's proposal, which would financially float the agency by assessing a fee on all insurance holders statewide, should be summarily rejected at the state Capitol. The problem with exchang-es in states that aren't well served by them is one the federal government will have to solve.
And Hawaii's congressional delegation had better get busy and see that it does.
» Connector leaders seem hopeful that federal authorities will allow unspent grant money to be redirected to cover costs of running the agency beyond the end of this year. That's when the startup, operational grants run out.
The Connector received more than $204 million in federal grants, much of which was intended to pay the information technology bills for setting up the website. About half of that is left, and congressional delegates need to push the Obama administration to extend the grants' expiration date, to buy a year's time to allow the Connector to wind down or transform.
» Hawaii's senators and representatives should start networking with other states struggling with insurance exchanges. Together they should push hard for an amendment that would allow a limited opt-out as soon as possible.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) does include a provision for state waivers, but those don't become an option before 2017. This date needs to be pushed up as early as possible. Even if the federal funds can be used past this year, Hawaii can't keep this agency running as is beyond 2015.
» Whether Hawaii needs an exchange at all is in doubt, and congressional leaders need to collaborate with state lawmakers on ways to shrink the whole Connector footprint.
A revelation on Thursday makes this discussion pertinent. The ACA was designed to make insurance discounts available only on policies purchased through online exchanges, such as the Connector. However, the Obama administration last week quietly issued a fix by announcing that in states that have experienced technical problems with the websites, some consumers can get the discounts on plans purchased outside the exchange.
This is essentially an admission that elaborate online exchanges haven't worked in many places — like Hawaii — and ultimately may not be needed at all. A simplified version of the Connector website, one that provides some information but relays shoppers to the carriers for purchasing, would certainly suffice.
read ... Star-Adv Editorial: Don't spend state funds on Connector
Mufi Gives Abercrombie Winning edge
Shapiro: I hear many voters who supported Abercrombie in 2010 express unhappiness with his haughty manner and perceived flip-flops on what they thought were his principles.
But I hear few say they wish they had voted for Hannemann or Aiona, who they feel are even less aligned with their views on key issues.
With Abercrombie’s low 43 percent approval in the polls, Aiona could have a shot in a head-to-head general election, but in a three-way race with Hannemann, the likely scenario is that Aiona and Hannemann would split the anti-Abercrombie vote and hand the governor re-election by plurality. (Wow. Mufi sure is a sap. Being played for a fool by the Lawn Gnome. And everybody in the state knows it.)
While Abercrombie’s 43 percent voter approval looks dismal in a two-way race in which he needs a majority, in a three-way contest it’s golden.
If Abercrombie comes close to holding 43 percent — and it’s hard to imagine an incumbent Democrat with a $4 million bankroll and an improving economy wouldn’t — neither Aiona nor Hannemann has shown an ability to beat his number.
Aiona got only 40 percent of the vote in 2010, which is the Republican core plus some Democrats and independents who couldn’t live with Abercrombie. He’d lose some of the latter to Hannemann.
Hannemann got 37 percent against Abercrombie in 2010 and only 33 percent in a 2012 congressional race against Tulsi Gabbard. In the Hawaii Poll, only 39 percent said they’d even consider voting for him as an independent.
Not a promising trend line for the former Honolulu mayor....
Then there’s state Sen. David Ige, who is running against Abercrombie in the Democratic primary....But as with Aiona and Hannemann, the numbers are against him. While Abercrombie’s overall voter approval is only 43 percent, it’s 53 percent among Democrats who will be voting in the primary.
read ... Mufi Helps Neil
Schatz Picks up lots of Support from Mainland, Developers
Borreca: So who are the big dogs that Hanabusa and Schatz can unleash on the hometown voters?
Schatz has quite a strong mainland kennel at the ready, starting with former Vice President Al Gore. Gore came out to say he liked Schatz's pro-environment and clean-energy stands.
Green supporters are one thing, but Schatz has also proven adept as picking up the green as he was hosted by Hawaii and New York heavy hitters.
In January real estate developer Duncan MacNaughton hosted a $1,000-per-person fundraiser for Schatz featuring former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg as the special guest.
In something of a "the torch is passing" moment, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who took the late U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye's place as chairman of the Appropriations Committee's subcommittee on defense, also held a local fundraiser for Schatz....
"Who in Hawaii are Bloomberg and Durbin going to appeal to?" Milner asks.
read ... Who cares who endorses Schatz or Hanabusa?
Former governors lend support as Ige opens campaign HQ
HNN: Hundreds of supporters in blue t-shirts turned out Saturday for the opening of Ige's headquarters at the Varsity Office Building in Moiliili. They included Senate Ways and Means Vice Chair, Sen. Michelle Kidani, and committee member Sen. Laura Thielen. Ige, a Democrat from Pearl City, chairs the senate money panel.
The big support came from former governors George Ariyoshi and Ben Cayetano, who came out for Ige several weeks ago....
Cayetano said the decision was especially difficult, given that he and Gov. Neil Abercrombie have a long history together.
"'You've known him for 40 years. You guys are close,'" Cayetano recalled his wife telling him. "He wrote the foreword to my book. But friendship should not stand in the way of what's best for the state."
read ... Former governors lend support as Ige opens campaign HQ
School Health Teacher Says no to Gay Sex Ed for 11 year olds:
KGI: A Kauai school nurse and educator is opposed to a controversial pilot sex education program called Pono Choices.
The program hasn’t be introduced to Kauai schools while its under review by a special committee, but nurse Dely Sasaki said the program is too far off base to think of introducing here because it teaches middle school students inappropriate subject matter.
“I am appalled at the decision to teach middle schoolers explicit lessons on having sex, including transgender sex, gay and lesbian sex, anal and oral sex to our children,” Sasaki wrote in an email last week to over 90 Kauai churches and church leaders. “To think that these lessons are being taught to 11 year olds is beyond my ability to comprehend.”
She sent the email on the eve of the deadline to submit opinions about the program to the Department of Education.
Sasaki, who worked for the department of health for 28 years teaching in schools and was also the manager for all the school nursing programs on Kauai, wants the DOE to prohibit the use of the program in the name of morality.
read ... Porno Choices
HHSC Privatization Proposal Revised
MN: The original bill provided a broad method for a transition and allowed regional or individual Hawaii Health Systems Corp. facilities to be taken over by a new entity, such as a nonprofit corporation, a for-profit corporation, a municipal facility or a public-benefit corporation. The revised bill limits the new entity to a nonprofit hospital corporation incorporated in the state before Jan. 1, 2000, thereby limiting entities to those currently doing business in Hawaii.
Numerous testifiers called for removing that limitation.
"It may well be that in-state partners are the best and final choice, but the entire thrust of the legislation is to expand HHSC's options," said HHSC West Hawaii Regional Board Chairman Ali Bairos. "This provision limits options. I respectfully offer that it is strategically misguided to prematurely limit HHSC's options at this early stage."
Other revised provisions in the measure include:
* Allowing the transition of the existing facilities' assets through sale, lease or transfer, but limiting real property to being transferred by lease only.
* Requiring the nonprofit hospital corporation to maintain equivalent hospital services for at least five years.
* Mandating that the hospital corporation receive general fund support from the state "sufficient to maintain equivalent hospital services" for at least five years.
* Mandating that the state take responsibility of the HHSC's liabilities related to collective bargaining contracts, including all employee benefits, pensions and financial obligations.
read ... Many revisions made to proposal
SB2284: Clayton Hee tries to make Hospitals Responsible for Home Care
SA: Senate Bill 2264, that attempts to strengthen the professional support and recognition of family caregivers. As originally written, the bill would allow a patient admitted to a hospital to name a caregiver and require the hospital to discuss the patient's care plan before discharge or transfer.
But the part that's really contentious is the other requirement, that the hospital instruct the designated caregiver in "certain after-care tasks" upon the patient's discharge.
That mandate drew resistance from opponents, especially the Healthcare Association of Hawaii, an organization that includes representatives of all the acute- and long-term-care facilities in the state — with concern about liability at the center of it.
As a result, the version of the bill that is likely to pass the Senate was softened to leave training a matter of hospital discretion.
State Sen. Clayton Hee said that was done primarily to keep the discussion of the issue going in the House, where a similar bill stalled.
Susan Reinhard, a registered nurse and senior vice president of AARP and director of its Public Policy Institute, has been watching this with interest. Reinhard was in town last week to address a forum on a study she co-authored, "Home Alone," a national family caregiver survey (see story, page E-4).
Among the big takeaways Reinhard cited was the plain fact that many family caregivers are in over their heads.
SA: Study reveals the complexity of caregiving
read ... Liability
SB2934: Solar Scammers Creating new Opportunities to Fleece Homeowners
BluePlanet Foundation: How about community solar? ...A solar project could be installed anywhere on the grid that can accept more capacity — an empty roof on a warehouse, a community center, or another building with enough roof space. Or, panels could be built into a new solar project that plugs directly into the energy utility's transmission network. Instead of buying panels to go on your own roof, community solar would allow you to join others who buy or lease a share of the panels installed somewhere else. When those panels generate energy, you would get a credit to lower your monthly electric bill.
At least 10 other states have passed policies to launch this concept. California calls it "shared renewables." Colorado and Min- nesota call them "community solar gardens." Massachusetts calls it "neigh- borhood" metering. Washington, D.C., calls it "community renewables." Under any name, this is a good idea.
Hawaii's Senate Bill 2934 can help us catch up....
Reality: No Blackout: RevoluSun Exposed
read ... Crooks Celebrate
HB1943: PRP Backs Smart Grid
PRP: The reality is we need both utility-scale and consumer-generated power. We need a "smart grid" that can accommodate both, if we are to speed our advance to a safe, stable, clean energy future.
A measure currently being considered by the Legislature would establish a grid modernization planning process that could help address the technical barriers. House Bill 1943 directs the Public Utilities Commission to explore upgrades to the Hawaii electric system for the anticipated growth of customer generation.
read ... Pacific Resources Partnership
Inouye to face off against Solomon for state Senate seat -- Again
HTH: After losing narrowly to state Sen. Malama Solomon in the 2012 Democratic primary, Inouye of Paukaa is challenging her again for the 4th District post. The 4th District covers North Hawaii from Honolii Stream to Keahole Point.
Inouye, a former state senator and Hawaii County mayor, lost by 69 votes, an outcome that tied her for wins and losses against Solomon.
They faced off previously in the 1998 primary for the Senate’s 1st District seat, which covered largely the same territory at the time. Inouye won during that matchup, ousting Solomon who had been in the Senate since 1983.
read ... Rematch
Big Island homesteaders still waiting on DHHL
SA: Nearly three decades after signing 99-year leases with the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, several dozen homesteaders in this arid and isolated region of the Big Island still are waiting for the agency to deliver the one thing critical to their ranching and farming lots: water.
They're also waiting for DHHL to subdivide the land.
Without a completed subdivision, the 36 homesteaders do not have tax map keys showing the precise boundaries for their leasehold lots.
Without tax map keys, they have been unable to get county permits or general financing to build homes on the property, although a few have done so anyway.
And 12 homesteaders who have agriculture lots don't even have access to the land a quarter of a century into their $1-a-year leases.
The only road leading to the unimproved farm lots has been unusable for more than two decades, according to the lessees. Today the area is overgrown, and a firebreak cuts across where the entrance used to be....
The U.S. Department of Interior, which oversees the federally created trust, is watching what happens in South Point.
"The department takes very seriously its oversight responsibilities regarding the Hawaiian Home Lands trust," spokeswoman Jessica Kershaw said in a statement. "While there is no easy fix to this situation, we are committed to working with the state and the beneficiaries to ensure the needs of Native Hawaiian beneficiaries are being met."
The fact that the department has been unable to subdivide the land and provide water after nearly 30 years underscores what happens when leaders change every so often and political priorities shift, Lee Loy added.
"Nobody is really held to task for not fulfilling promises made 30 years ago," he said. "It's embarrassing."
read ... DHHL Waiting
After Welching on Promise of Free Representation, Anti-GMO Activists Seek to 'Intervene'
SA: Four organizations that support Kauai County's new ordinance pertaining to pesticide use and cultivation of genetically modified crops are seeking to intervene in a federal lawsuit that aims to block its implementation.
According to documents filed in U.S. District Court last month, the Center for Food Safety, the Pesticide Action Network North America, the Surfrider Foundation and a coalition of residents called Ka Makani Hoopono (The Wind that Makes Right) contend the county will not adequately represent their environmental interests in the lawsuit filed by four seed companies.
"Our clients have their own interests to be protected," said Earthjustice attorney Paul Achitoff. "We feel the county cannot be relied upon to defend those interests."
Reality: Anti-GMO Activists Welch on Promise to Provide Pro-Bono Defense for Kauai County
Maui: Anti-GMO Petition Seeks Full Ban
read ... Groups seek to intervene in GMO suit
Kauai: Morons, Idiots, & Imbeciles Continue to Whine about Dairy Farm
KGI: Voices were raised, accusations made and audible tete-a-tetes between public testifiers, audience members and company representatives were exchanged during Thursday’s meeting on a proposal by Hawaii Dairy Farms to develop a 582-acre dairy operation in Mahaulepu.
“I want to remind people that we really would like to have this discussion in the spirit of aloha and be respectful,” Malama Mahaulepu Board President Suzanne Kashiwaeda said halfway through the meeting, which was attended by about 70 residents at the Koloa Neighborhood Center....
Poipu resident Kathy Sheffield said she lives three miles away from the project and questioned the motives behind it.
“This is a commercial agricultural project, and so, therefore, are they doing it for the money or really because they care about the kids on Kauai getting fresh milk,” Sheffield said. “It just doesn’t seem logical to me to bring a herd of cow from Washington state across the ocean. You haven’t made any connections yet to process your milk or to be taken off-island to be processed and then brought back fresh for the kids, so isn’t it the same thing as bringing in milk from the Mainland to begin with?”...
Denese Wojcik said her biggest concern is about the environmental impact of the dairy.
“I don’t think they have fully addressed it yet,” Wojcik said.
The Poipu resident said she would feel much better if the company completes a National Pollution Discharge Elimination permit, which controls water pollution by regulating point sources that discharge pollutants, through the state Department of Health.
“It’s concerning that we’re this far along and they haven’t thought of doing that themselves without everybody here screaming and carrying on,” Wojcik said.
Hennessey said the farm is not required to have an NPES permit but explained that company officials are considering one as “a good neighbor effort.”
Under current plans, 8 percent of all cow waste on the property, collected during the milking process, is captured and then heavily diluted with water, creating an organic fertilizer.
To further mitigate the smell, Garmatz said Hawaii Dairy Farms officials may seek to cover the effluent ponds.
Koloa resident David Hibbitt said he has not decided how he feels about the dairy and explained he would like to hear more about the dairy’s emergency plans.
“They’ve talked about the best case scenario about what they’d like to happen but that’s just one side of the envelope,” Hibbitt said. “I’d like to hear the worst case scenario, the worst side of the envelope, and we can figure out what’s in between. People touch on those subjects, but ... you can’t study everything — we pretend to know everything but there’s stuff that’s going to happen that we don’t know yet.”
(The problem is that these morons have a say in the matter.)
read ... A herd of concerns
As Tax Cut Advances, Beer entrepreneurs seek to reawaken brewing industry
SA: Kakaako warehouse? Cheers!
A Waikiki burger restaurant? Prost!
A Kihei industrial park? Bottoms up!
Beer is expected to soon flow from the three venues as part of a major expansion in Hawaii's brewing industry that also includes more tentative plans by a World War II museum operator, two cousins from Pittsburgh, a well-established local beer producer and a former brewpub looking for resurrection.
Realizing even several of these ventures will contribute to arguably record growth for local production of craft ales and lagers in the state.
read ... Beer entrepreneurs seek to reawaken brewing industry
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