 Paradise for Hawaiians |
Imee Gallardo, 24, has been scooping ice cream at a Häagen-Dazs shop at Waikiki Beach for five years, and during that time the shop has done something its counterparts on the mainland rarely do: it has paid for her health care.
“I wouldn’t get coverage on the mainland?” Ms. Gallardo asked. “Even if I worked? Why?”
Since 1974, Hawaii has required all employers to provide relatively generous health care benefits to any employee who works 20 hours a week or more. If health care legislation passes in Congress, the rest of the country may barely catch up.
Lawmakers working on a national health care fix have much to learn from the past 35 years in Hawaii, President Obama’s native state.
Among the most important lessons is that even small steps to change the system can have lasting effects on health. Another is that, once benefits are entrenched, taking them away becomes almost impossible. There have not been any serious efforts in Hawaii to repeal the law…
Paradise for Republicans
But perhaps the most intriguing lesson from Hawaii has to do with costs. This is a state where regular milk sells for $8 a gallon, gasoline costs $3.60 a gallon and the median price of a home in 2008 was $624,000 — the second-highest in the nation. Despite this, Hawaii’s health insurance premiums are nearly tied with North Dakota for the lowest in the country, and Medicare costs per beneficiary are the nation’s lowest.
Hawaii residents live longer than people in the rest of the country, recent surveys have shown, and the state’s health care system may be one reason. In one example, Hawaii has the nation’s highest incidence of breast cancer but the lowest death rate from the disease…
With nearly 90 percent of the populace given relatively generous benefits, patients stay healthy and health providers have the money and motivation to innovate.
Why do Republicans prefer solutions designed and administered by beancounters to cost more than necessary? Isn’t capitalism supposed to be about competition?
Thanks, Mr. Fusion
Its amazing how reasonable health care costs can be when you don’t have hundreds of thousands of people walking across a border and taking advantage of the system.
Ethnic cleansing has always been a Republikan solution.
This cracks me up. AS pointed out a few times here and a million times elsewhere, the Dems do not need any Repub help. You are the rulers, just do it.
What a cop-out. Right-wing obstructionist asshats.
“Why do Republicans prefer solutions designed and administered by beancounters to cost more than necessary? ” – Messed up statement on it’s own. Republicans as far as I can see oppose Govt. beancounaters administering medicine, because it costs more.
Hawaii is actually excellent example of the plan some (if not many) Republicans would support.
It has Govt. not providing anything. Just regulating.
Also, it is excellent example of what article doesn’t mention: as soon as Govt. steps in to provide healthcare, that part of it goes into the costs exponentially and can’t be sustained. Earlier this year Hawaii needed to stop its Govt. funded mandatory health care for all children. Because costs went out of control. Because, same as current Dem. plans, it is utopian. It covered great moral cause: health for the children (we all want that don’t we?). But ignored what Govt. CAN”T do: Run everyday things on cost.
Hawaii is Democratic and so is Detroit.
http://blog.taragana.com/n/detroit-youth-jobless-and-facing-crime-see-dead-end-on-road-to-adulthood-in-distressed-city-198883/
Both parties like to point to an example with a cherry on top, while ignoring their failed policies.
I think Hawaii funds their healthcare program with an added 18% sales tax on flower-patterned shirts and dresses.
Sure federal government run health care will save us. Joke. Ever try to go on disability? Talk to someone who has tried it. Talk to someone who can’t work, is in pain, can’t leave the house, and the federal government denies them disability. They go broke, lose everything, go into debt to see a doctor, and the feds say “sorry you don’t qualify”. They routinely deny benefits no matter how bad a shape someone’s in. They have to get a lawyer and fight for benefits while they are in pain and can’t work. That’s what you will get with FEDCARE a bunch of bureaucratic denial while they all pay themselves very richly and get unlimited health care coverage, the best disability coverage in the universe, wine and dine at the most expensive restaurants on your dime, you pay for it, and when it’s your turn to get help, you suddenly realize you are sitting in the toilet bowl while they take a dump. Sending it all back to the states is a better solution.
How much money is dumped in Hawaii from tourists? Norway is a wealthy nation with universal health because it skims off North Sea oil and gas profits. If you’re sitting on a ducked taped bar stool at the local diner in Podunk AK, you don’t get cash thrown out of passing cars. Many local economies do not scale. Any real health plan out of Washington will skim off your net income. Who else is going to pay for it? Republicans will not embrace reform because it competes with and dictates to the private sector. So we have an half-assed mess being signed into law before the midterms, all funded with monopoly money.
Hawaii is the perfect example of a State doing what it’s citizens want, as per the Constitution.
I applaud them.
Now, if we can just get the altruists to realize this is NOT a federal government responsibility, perhaps the other states can follow suit.
I’m convinced Alf1 is a plant to stir the DU pot. It isn’t possible that a real person so ign.. no, stupid is able to steal a breath of air, much less voice a political opinion.
So why do Democrats need 1100+ pages of legislation for a health-care (insurance?) bill?
Why not just cut-and-paste the Hawaiian bill, if it’s what they want?
Democrat majorities in the House and Senate. Democrat President. What’s stopping them?
Dear Alfred1 – If you are so hot and bothered about Dems controlling your country, why don’t you move up here to Canada? We have a good old-fashioned Conservative government now. PS – Don’t worry about health care, we’ve got ya covered.
I gotta a better title for your post.
“Do you still beat your spouse?”
Nahhh, you’re not trolling…not one bit.
#16 Dale: I’m convinced Alf1 is a plant to stir the DU pot. It isn’t possible that a real person so ign.. no, stupid is able to steal a breath of air, much less voice a political opinion.
You ever watch Glenn Beck? aka Life According to Bozo. This is typical for his fans.
I hear they put fluoride in the drinking water in Hawaii.
The GOP is rapidly becoming the trailer-trash racist white guy party.
The problem with you and smartalix’s comments is you fail to recognize that Alfred1 and Beck *have* an opinion, reguardless of its ‘stupidity’.
You guys just go straight for the Liberal Fascist approach, don’t you??
No the majority of Americans don’t want it Mr. Fusion. They’d make their voices heard but are being shouted down by the people who are pushing this as a solution for everybody.
So for those of us who have healthcare (and are paying for it out of our middle class pockets mind you) are going to have it taken away to pay for those who don’t.
The majority (that you are so familiar with) wouldn’t have any opposition to getting the un-insured, insured if it wasn’t for getting our coverage scrapped in the process.
The backers are so busy trying to ram-f***ing rod this down the throats of the public that they are unable (unwilling?) to listen to the rest of us. I don’t hear them asking for public debate, instead we’re being told what a great deal this is for *US*
It’s the Häagen-Dazs ice cream.
Abe, does intellectual honesty count for anything?
#29, And if they DID want it, they would have to change the Constitution to get it.
This whole federal mandate to buy buy something is such a violation of the Constitution, I am surprised I’m not channeling Jefferson right now.
“The construction applied … to those parts of the Constitution of the United States which delegate Congress a power … ought not to be construed as themselves to give unlimited powers, nor a part to be so taken as to destroy the whole residue of that instrument.”
–Thomas Jefferson
What a BS caption on this article. The real question is why do the DEMOCRATS hate the US? Furthermore, why are not all of the universal health care proponents aghast at the fact that people that work less than 20 hours a week are not covered and that the people that do have coverage only have it through employers?! This entire article is a testament to a market driven solution in combination with regulation which is what the Republicans have proposed and which the Democrats have adamantly opposed.
#15
Could not have said it better.
#27
WTF are you smoking? The fundamental Republican position is to make legislative corrections to insurance law (as opposed to completely tearing down the system at the Federal level) and allow the States to come up with a solution. It is the Democrats that would destroy Hawaii’s system with an all encompassing Federal solution. So why do the Democrats hate Hawaii?
#31
Well I’m afraid Intellectual Honesty these days gets you coffee. But at least you can’t be sued for it.
“Isn’t capitalism supposed to be about competition?”
No. Not even close. Captialism at it’s extreme is ideally representing by monopolies and ‘company towns’. Competition is an aspect of the free market that MIGHT help drive down costs and provide innovations for the customers. But that’s never required. The ONLY function of capitalism that is required is profit. The only requirement of a CEO to his/her shareholders is to increase company value. If they can do that via competition and lower costs…great they will…if they can do that via monopolistic practices and raising costs…they will. ALL that matters is making the MOST profit possible. The method to making the profit doesn’t matter. It might matter to the consumer, but not to the corporation.
Companies, say insurance companies, don’t WANT competition and lower costs, they want LESS competition and higher consumer cost…it makes them more money/profit. That’s their only legal required motivation.
#37 you sound more like half empty…
37, Glass Half Full,
Thank you for straightening that out… If someone out there can actually say, as a business, they LIKE competition, they’re full of horse shit.
It’s only through GOVERNMENT protection of the vulnerable (i.e. the people) from the exploitation of the powerful (i.e. business, foreign nations, etc) that “competition” exists. That is their raison d’etre.
19 MikeN,
Please, never invite Alfred1 to Canada again. Well, I guess he can go to the backwoods of Alberta. Everyone there is mentally deficient.
Did you catch the video of Harper playing piano? What a tool.
Living on an island, changes people. They behave like they’re on a very big boat.