Everything You Wanted to Know About Obamacare – Grassroot Interviews Hawaii’s Health Insurance Administrator

From Grassroot Institute November 13, 2013

In this latest video for Think Tech Hawaii, Lloyd Lim, Hawaii’s State Health Insurance Administrator, shared his personal views on Obamacare in an interview with Grassroot Institute President Dr. Keli’i Akina.   Lim spoke candidly about the pros and cons of the new Affordable Care Act, clarifying that it forces nearly every American to purchase a government approved insurance plan for the sake of providing medical insurance to those who either cannot afford or qualify for insurance on their own.  A major concern to Lim, particularly as an Administrator, is how to implement the Act due to its more than one thousand pages of requirements.

“It’s hard for anybody to know all these laws… it becomes hard for people to control it,” stated Lim, concluding, “It’s certainly made my job much more complicated.”  Asked about the problems with the roll-out of the program and the national website, Lloyd suggested two factors, “They probably hired the wrong vendor… and probably …wrong project management going on on the government side.”  The interview contains a valuable introduction to what the Affordable Care Act is and clearly explains the “Hawaii Healthcare Connector,” which Lim initiated as its start-up executive director.  Throughout the conversation, Dr. Akina highlights the problem of the growing encroachment of  the federal government upon the individual liberty and economic freedom of states and citizens.

Mr. Lim will join other experts as Dr. Akina hosts a Grassroot Calabash panel on Obamacare on December 11, 2013 from 10:30 AM -Noon, followed by a luncheon.  Click here for more information or to register.

Obamacare to Hawaii: "If it ain't broke, break it!"

by Kelii Akina, President Grassroot Institute

My recent interview with Hawaii's state health insurance administrator unearthed a little celebrated fact. Before the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, our health insurance system in the state was basically working fine.  Not perfect, and not necessarily to the full liking of free-market thinkers, the system was nonetheless accomplishing its purpose.  Thanks to an industry-driven model, and regulated at home by our own state, approximately 90 percent of all people in the state of Hawaii have enjoyed health care coverage. 

Enter Obamacare.

Under the premise that masses of deserving individuals are going without health insurance,  Hawaii's rather successful insurance system is now being replaced by an experimental version of a nationally centralized program run by the federal government. Chinks in the system and poor website design aside, the federal government is basically telling Hawaii that we simply do not matter. The rest of the nation needs it, so the argument goes, therefore Hawaii just loses out. After years of developing and polishing a system that is self-correcting and improving, considered a model to other states, Hawaii's health insurance program is being unnecessarily and inefficiently overhauled. 

The same thing has been happening for nearly a century with Hawaii's shipping industry.  The 1920 maritime law known as the Jones Act astronomically raises the cost of shipping goods to American ports (see my Daily Caller article on our website).  While that may not seem to matter much if you live in Iowa, those of us in Hawaii are surrounded by 360 degrees of ocean and rely on shipping for up to 95 percent of all our goods.  The Commerce Clause of the Constitution of the United States makes it clear that the federal government cannot act in a way that brings specific and inordinate harm to any particular state. 

The Jones Act and the Affordable Care Act are both examples of the federal government acting in an unconstitutional way that brings inordinate harm to a state, and in particular to Hawaii.  For this reason, Grassroot Institute urges the good people of Hawaii to call upon their federal representatives to reverse the practice of the federal government imposing undo harm upon our state's economy and lifestyle.

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