Hospital Reform? Randy Perriera Says "F*** You"
Hawaii Congressional Delegation How They Voted September 22, 2014
Class Action Suit Seeks Treatment for Autistic Children in Hawaii
Poll: Ige 43% - Aiona 39%
CB: Ige, a state senator, is up 43 percent to 39 percent over Aiona, the former lieutenant governor.
Just 8 percent of voters favor Mufi Hannemann, the former Honolulu mayor running as the candidate of the Hawaii Independent Party.
Libertarian candidate Jeff Davis is at 2 percent. A total of 8 percent of voters surveyed are unsure as to who they’ll vote for in the Nov. 4 general election.
“Among people who voted in the Democratic primary, Ige does as well among Abercrombie voters as he does with those who voted for him,” said Fitch....
Fitch said the other important thing that suggests an Ige victory is that there were “a significant number” of Republicans who “crossed over” and pulled the Democratic Party ballot in the primary....
Ige leads Aiona on the Big Island and especially Maui, but trails him in the part of Oahu that is in the 2nd Congressional District. The two candidates split voters in the 1st Congressional District, which is primarily urban Oahu.
read ... Poll
Underpaid by 30%--Living costs handicap local doctors
SA: While Hawaii doctors get paid slightly more than the national average, the state has the third-highest cost of living, making it difficult to attract and retain physicians, according to the Hawaii Medical Association.
Hawaii has the 22nd-highest average Medicare payment for an office visit at $77.86, compared with the national average of $72.81, according to an HMA analysis of Medicare reimbursements in 87 regions.
However, the state's cost of living index is 165.7 points, far above the national average of 100. Hawaii is higher than all Medicare regions except Manhattan and Long Island in New York. Physicians in San Francisco, with a comparable cost of living to Honolulu, are paid $10 more for the same office visit, the data show.
"It shows when you make an adjustment for the cost of living, we're underpaid by about 30 percent," said Christopher Flanders, executive director of HMA, a physician advocacy group with 1,100 members. "It's a substantial amount, and we've never been able to get a real clear idea as to why that is."
Many local doctors are despondent having no say in what they're paid by government programs or private insurers, despite having costlier overhead for equipment, utilities and office space.
"We don't have that many commercial insurers, so competition tends to not exist, so that suppresses what the payments are," Flanders said. "(For Medicare) the equation has to balance out. If one state gets an increase in their reimbursements, it has to come at the expense of the other states. Nobody wants to get cut."
In addition, reimbursements for Medicaid, the government health insurance program for low-income residents, are about half of Medicare rates, he said.
The situation has grown so burdensome that many Hawaii physicians are retiring early or leaving the profession, contributing to a statewide shortage of 700 doctors, a number that is expected to double by 2020. Right now Hawaii needs 3,537 doctors but has only 2,795, according to data collected by the Hawaii/Pacific Basin Area Health Education Center at the University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine.
read ... Living costs handicap local doctors
Hawaii Ethics Commission Urged to Release Board Members’ Financial Disclosures
CB: The Hawaii State Ethics Commission will consider a request this week by Civil Beat and the League of Women Voters to release the financial disclosure statements of dozens of powerful state board members.
The news outlet and good-government group want the documents filed by members of the 15 boards that the Legislature unanimously required to publicly disclose their financial interests. Civil Beat has filed a public records request for the disclosure statements of current members of the University of Hawaii Board of Regents, Public Utilities Commission and Hawaii Community Development Authority. That request was denied.
The law took effect July 8 after Gov. Neil Abercrombie decided against vetoing the measure. But two weeks later, the Ethics Commission voted to keep confidential the disclosure statements of any member who filed before July 8.
read ... Ethics?
HPD Transparency to Come of Latest Police Scandal?
CB: Kealoha is considering opening up his department to more scrutiny, at least when it comes to its policies and procedures.
During the press conference, he said he’s been in discussions with others to post HPD’s policies online for the public to view.
That would be a big change for the department, which today charges for access to those policies and sometimes redacts certain information from the documents, which is also charged to the person requesting the document.
For example, Civil Beat in the past requested — and paid for — HPD’s policies on officer-involved shootings and use of force. Passages and sometimes pages are blacked out of those documents.
Dan Gluck is the senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii. He’s has also been been charged for access to HPD’s policies, including those regarding response to school violence, crime scene investigations and the Hawaiian Sovereignty Movement.
The ACLU posts all of these policies on its website after receiving them from HPD, but Gluck said he would welcome having that information made widely available.
read ... HPD Transparency?
NYT: Gillibrand Chubby Enough for Inouye?
NYT: Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, caused a commotion this month when she revealed in a memoir how her male colleagues felt free to comment rather vividly on her weight. The senator came under pressure to reveal the names of the perpetrators, but declined, setting off a guessing game in Washington.
Probably the most egregious incident was when a senior senator squeezed her waist and told her: “Don’t lose too much weight now. I like my girls chubby!”
It turns out the senator was the late Daniel K. Inouye, Democrat of Hawaii, the decorated veteran and civil rights hero, according to people with knowledge of the incident....
... in an all but forgotten chapter of his career, the senator had been accused of sexual misconduct: In 1992, his hairdresser said that Mr. Inouye had forced her to have sex with him.
Her accusations exploded into a campaign issue that year, and one Hawaii state senator announced that she had heard from nine other women who said they had been sexually harassed by Mr. Inouye. But the women did not want to go forward with their claims.
PJ: Now that Inouye is dead, he makes an easy target.
Background: Seniority? Hawaii is better off without it
read ... The New York Times
Water Board Owes Customers a Justification
SA: ...the clock is ticking for board officials to answer the most burning questions posed in a recent report from City Auditor Edwin Young.
First, how do you know the current rate scheme is fair to customers? And how can you improve your rapport with customers?
Last week officials from the water board countered the audit by pointing out the various improvements that have been made since the utility hit a low point more than a year ago. But clearly, the agency needs to grasp just how much ground it lost during that mess, and how many fences it must mend with its customers.
Progress has been made in giving ratepayers bills that reflect actual use, rather than the estimated bills the board issued during frequent failures of its automated meter reading system. But when that technical dysfunction was compounded by a flawed rollout of the new billing system and poor customer service, the result was a public-relations train wreck.
Many customers who for years, even decades, accepted water bills with few questions, are now quite understandably distrusting of the whole enterprise, wondering which of their many charges might have been in error.
That's why Young was right to observe that the explanation for the rates needs to be made clear now, even if those rates were approved in 2011. Customers are now questioning past history, and the board owes them a plainspoken justification for the rates.
read ... Justify This
Transcom leader tells Military car shipper to do better job
BND: Gen. Paul Selva, the commander of the U.S. Transportation Command, is losing his patience with the federal contractor hired to move military members' privately owned vehicles overseas and back.
Over the last four months, the four-star general has kept mum, at least publicly, about the problems besetting International Auto Logistics, the Brunswick, Ga., firm that's become the target of thousands of troops' complaints since it won a nearly $1 billion contract to ship the vehicles four months ago.
The complaints include cars showing up months past their promised delivery dates and the appearance of unexplained dents and scratches when they do show up. In addition, IAL has been rapped for the failure of its employees to respond to repeated phone calls and emails from exasperated car owners.
read ... Transcom leader tells car shipper to do better job
Dispensary Will Just Create More Problems
KGI: “There is no doubt in my mind that the Hawaii medical marijuana law needs to be improved; however, I’m not sure that a clinic or dispensary will solve our problems,” Theresa Koki, coordinator for Life’s Choices Kauai, a county-funded anti-drug program, said. “In fact, it might contribute to additional problems.”
Victoria “Vickie” Franks, the Republican challenging Rep. Daynette “Dee” Morikawa in the general election for her House seat, said she “has difficulty supporting inhalation of smoke in any form.”
Franks said she’s particularly concerned because marijuana has not received the federal government’s stamp of approval and could open the doors to harsher drugs for medicinal and recreational users.
“Having worked with drug addicts, and since it doesn’t cure anything, I find no reason to open a door of abuse when pills are available and when the entire plant is not approved by the FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration),” Franks wrote in an email. “Also, since there have been many reported abuses where minors have acquired marijuana cigarettes supposedly grown for medicinal uses, it would be idiotic to assume the same isn’t already happening here in Hawaii.”
read ... Only Potheads want Weed
QUICK HITS: