Governor Ige and Hawaii Healthcare

At last night’s meeting, Governor Ige was asked what his plan was to implement single-payer healthcare for Hawaii when the Republican’s in Washington repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA).  He said he is not concerned since he “assumes" that HMSA will just carry on as they did before the ACA providing insurance for “most” in Hawaii.  (All those who are satisfied with their HMSA policy under the ACA please raise your hand.)

Healthcare for “most” is not good enough.  Hawaii needs healthcare for all.  When the food service worker at your favorite restaurant gets a cold, he still has to come to work, exposing you to his illness.  Healthcare must be available for everyone and the best way to do this is through a single-payer system that is financed through taxes.  Yes, your taxes will go up, but if you no longer need to pay $1000/month in health insurance premiums for your family.

People seem to misunderstand what “single-payer” means.  In its simplest form, it is “Medicare for All”.  All as in everyone.  Employers will be relieved of the burden of having to provide health insurance.  Citizens will no longer have to worry about changing jobs and losing health insurance.  Doctors will no longer have to deal with the inconsistent administrative procedures of several different organizations.  Procedures which are set up to keep you, the patient, from getting the care you need.  (Remember Sarah Palin’s “death panels”?  Why do you think the CEOs of health insurance companies made an average of $5.4M in 2014.  They don’t get paid to “waste money” providing you with care.)

Medicare has overhead costs of a mere 3% (some studies say only 2%).  Insurance company overhead is 17%.  In other words, that insurance CEO's exorbitant salary is (as Tony Soprano would say) “the vig” skimmed off the top while his company provides you with an inferior product.  Republicans are lying when they say that allowing insurance polices to be sold across state lines will increase competition and drive down costs.  The credit card industry was deregulated in that way, are you familiar with the up to 25% interest rate on your monthly balance?

The United States is the only advance country in the world that does not employ a single-payer system.  The Republican claim that the “United States has the best healthcare in the world” is only true if you have so much money you can buy your own doctor.  A single-payer system does not prevent the extremely wealthy from continuing to do just that.  Nor does a single-payer system set up a National Health Service.  Rather it allows for true competition in the market place since the single-payer system will, as Medicare does (when Congress allows it to), be able to negotiate with multiple providers to get the best care at the least cost.

The Hawaii Health Authority (HHA) was set up to propose a way for Hawaii to move to a single-payer system.  Governor Ige was given several opportunities to explain his opposition to the HHA, he wiffed.

All in all, it was an extremely disappointing event.

Finding your State Representatives and contacting them

Are you "mad as hell and not going to take it anymore"?  Or maybe you would just like to propose a good idea but you don't know who to tell it to.  Finding who your state representatives are is really easy using the Hawaii State Legislature web site and entering your street name in the box at the top right hand corner.  Once you find them, you can:

• get their contact information to email, phone or send them a postcard,
• follow these simple instructions to submit testimony about bills before the legislature.
• find which bills have a hearing scheduled.
• discover the status of bills you are interested in.
• determine whether or not your representatives voted the way you wanted them to.

The State Legislature web site looks confusing at first, but after a few minutes you will be glad you signed on.  Representative Democracy only works when those being represented know what their representatives are doing.

Consider the bill you are contacting your state representatives about, you may also want to send an email to the Kauai County Council or just cc: them.

Submitting Testimony to the Hawaii Legislature

President Trump has surely made life hectic, even at the State Government Level.  The "Repeal and Replace" of the Affordable Care Act puts all of our health care options in serious jeopardy.  The Hawaii Healthcare Authority was established in 2009 to research how best to provide Healthcare to Hawaii, however, today in 2017, the State Legislature is considering defunding the Authority at a time that Hawaii needs it most.  There are several options for contacting your State Legislature, but one of the easiest is to do it through the Legislature's web site.  You can use the following instructions  to submit testimony for any bill before the Legislature.

1. Go to the Hawaii Legislature web site
2. Sign-in or create an account.  You will need to provide a real email address
3. Click on the "Submit Testimony" button in the middle of the page
4. Enter the Bill you want to testify for.  In this case type in "HB100"
5. Fill in the form with your position on the bill.

As an example, I submitted this for HB100.  

President Trump and the Republican Congress have promised to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA). It is a huge question whether or not they will actually replace it with something that will provide insurance for most Americans. In 2009, Hawaii established the Hawaii Health Authority to research how the state might provide a single-payer Healthcare for all. The state legislature is now considering whether or not to fund the HHA in the annual budget (HB100). If you get your health insurance from the health exchange, there is an excellent chance that you will not be able to buy any comprehensive or affordable health insurance in 2018. If you are on Medicare, there is an excellent chance your benefits will be cut and/or your premiums will go up. If you are on Medicaid you should have even more incentive to take action. When the Federal government fails us, the State of Hawaii must stand up.

Simple.  Even easier than calling your representative!

Join the Resistance! Sunday, 26 February, State Building Lihue

Make your voice heard!  The strange and fearful phenomenon Mr.  Trump brings to our values, our well being,  our country and its Constitution requires us to resist resoundingly and to reframe the options.       In consonance with other Recess Resistance events across the United States and participation of Our Revolution,  Kauai Indivisible, Hawaii for Bernie and the Democrats of Kauai precinct 16-2, let's show resistance and work toward Progressive Values including: Healthcare for all; promising to save Medicare and Medicaid; and expanding Social Security.      Join the resistance this Sunday, February  26, from 2 to 3 p.m., starting at the State Building in Lihue, talking story and listening to a few short speeches (2 minutes each) from whoever wants to share concerns about our country's identity and future.       We will then proceed to the County Courthouse and conclude after brief "open mike" comments and a song (song ideas and singers welcome!).      Please RSVP to majchk@gmail.com and cc: our d16-2 secretary at psgegen@hotmail.com. Maps available here on the Our Revolution web site  You may also RSVP on the Our Revolution site.

Democratic Betrayal? Pick a new DNC chair!

Rex Tillerson was confirmed as Secretary of State yesterday (Wednesday 1 Feb).  Tillerson is the CEO of Exxon and denies Climate Change.  Can there be any better example of how America is being turned into fiefdoms for the benefit of those who already have more than the rest of us combined?

There were 4 Democrats who voted for Tillerson: Warner from Virginia, King from Maine (who is actually an independent), Heitkamp from South Dakota and Manchin from West Virginia.  Since the Republicans have a 2-vote majority in the Senate and Tillerson (apparently) would have been confirmed without these Senators, Democrats must ask themselves about "what do we do about this."

Do you insist that the Democratic Party remain united against Trump -- no matter what, or do you give these 4 Senators a break recognizing that they voted for confirmation because stopping Tillerson was a "lost cause" (the confirmation was "going to happen", so why vote against it)?

Is this a time to "cleanse"the Democratic Party?  It is often suggested that DINOs (Democrats in Name Only) should be pushed out of the party.  The group Justice Democrats thinks so:

The solution is not unity with the corporate-backed Democrats. The solution is to challenge them and replace every single one of them with people who will fight for voters, not donors. It’s time to rebuild the Democratic Party from scratch to be a party that fights for a clear progressive vision.

The problem is, how do you identify these "corporate-backed" Democrats.  Would that include Corrie Booker from New Jersey who is currently being chastised for protecting the drug companies?  Some have suggested that Tulsi Gabbard fits the DINO category because of her trip to Syria where she met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

It is easy to let the anger we have about the failures of the Democratic Party cause us to want to "clean house", I surely feel it.  But, we need to concentrate on our common foe, Donald Trump.  Today (2 Feb), we are on the verge of a great victory, IF we can get one more vote against the confirmation of Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary.

The direction the Democratic Party will take depends on who is elected as the chairman of the DNC.  The DNC is having 4 "Unity Sessions" that can be viewed on the Democrats web site.  They are 8 hours long and so quite boring.  The candidates for DNC chair participated in a debate sponsored by the Huffington Post.  They are:

• Sally Boynton Brown, Idaho Democratic Party Executive Director, President of Association of State Democratic Executive Directors
• Ray Buckley, New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair, Association of State Democratic Parties Chair
• Pete Buttigieg, Mayor of South Bend, IN
• Keith Ellison, U.S. Representative (MN-5)
• Jehmu Greene, Fox News Political Analyst
• Jaime Harrison, South Carolina Democratic Party Chair
• Tom Perez, secretary of Labor.

The DNC members will vote for the new chair at the end of February.  If you prefer one of the above, let them know.  Better yet, you are invited to send the 16-2 president an email with how you would rank each of the above candidates.  Or leave comments below.

Hooray for Party reforms and the DNC chair, other issues

Hooray!  very glad to see the d16-2 blog in action!   Come, let us reason together - or at least share!

Imagine Joy suggests a conversation about super-delegates as a step in reforming our house.

Of more immediate concern to me is the election of the Democratic National Chairperson around February 23, and getting our views informed and preferences rank-ordered so we can be the change we want.

I would dearly love to gain input on rank-ordering d16-2 membership preferences for DNC-chair so we can build that out within our Congressional delegation, our DNC Committee persons, and our state and county party organs.  Maybe that is a separate reposting of candidates' names and the four websites for candidates?    I myself am undecided, largely among Ray Buckley, Keith Ellison, and Perez, but we should dialogue!

Several Basic ideas for reforming our party:
--  Overall focus:  We cannot reclaim legislative or executive branches without a fifty-state strategy and engaging in every state.
--  Money:  Fund-raising cannot be the focus of every questionnaire or action from a Democratic candidate.   Bernie is right and Barack is right:  it's grass roots and broad participation that change things.  Money raised should be money equally spent on building the party steadily for at least a decade so we re-identify as a national and local party, rural and urban, young and old.
--  Accountability:  we need intra party transparency on where the money goes and how it is divvied up.
--  Campaign finance reform has been killed repeatedly by GOP.  We need leadership that pledges to fight for that until the battle is won, otherwise the Sheldon Adelson and Kochs and other billionaires will continue to buy the Congress and state houses they want.
--  Refreshing the leadership so we have bridges and backbencher at every level.  Lots of issues here, but those who get involved end up as officers and they end up as delegates, etc., which is a selection via who-can-and-will volunteer as much as by elections.

I'll stop, but yes, read Jane Mayer's Dark Money, listen to Hidden Brain blog's The Deep Story this week, but most of all, we need to think for ourselves and share.

And thanks John and anyone else instrumental in birthing the blog.

100 Days, 10 Actions

The woman's march is asking us to perform 10 Actions in 100 days.  The first action is to create postcards to send to your national and state representatives.  On the Woman's March web page they provided two templates for printing postcards.  I modified the "professionally printed" template to use with some 4x6 blank postcards that I purchased through Amazon.  Unfortunately my Canon mx922 does not allow me to print two sides at once, the cards are just a bit too thick.   But they are great cards.

I printed out page one on one side of several cards, then put the same cards back into the print feeder (printed side up) to print out page 2.  Works like a charm.  This also lets me put a different page 1 on the cards.

They don't look that bad in the photo do they?

If you're wondering why a post card and more particularly why this post card, well, first sending letters is a problem because the government is still concerned that envelopes will contain anthrax so letters are delayed by as much as weeks.  Postcards go through almost right away.  And if you send your postcard to local offices, they are received even faster.  (Concerning emails, "Indivisible" [a group of former congressional aides] says, it would take 100,000 to make the same impact as just 10 postcards.)

The reason to use this front picture is to make it clear to our representatives that we are united.  As voters, we know that WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER.  When our representatives see the "Hear Our Voice" logo 1 time, they will ignore it.  10 times they might ask their staff to pay attention.  100 times, they'll probably read each one.  1000 times, it will not matter who is financing their campaign, our representatives will know that if they want our vote they have to pay attention.  They will have to lead.

As Democrats we are not members of any organized political group (Will Rogers), but if we make it clear that just because we might individually disagree with one another on specific policies, that does not mean our representatives can ignore us.

One cannot lead Democrats by telling them which way to go.  Rather, it is figuring out those things we Democrats have in common and leading us to those common goals.  Democrats are independent thinkers who are open to discussion.  Not like Republicans who have never had an original thought and so are looking for someone to tell them how to live their lives.  Rush Limbaugh listeners pride themselves on being known as "ditto heads".  A Democrat would hide his face in shame.

It is now time to raise our voices, even if discordant -- maybe especially if discordant,  to let our representatives know that "We're as mad as hell, and we're not going to take it any more."  We need to demand that the Democratic Party leaders recognize that while "herding cats" is difficult that if they want to win and maintain their positions in the party or the legislature or even Congress, that they need to pay attention to our divergent problems and find solutions.  None of us are demanding "My way or the Highway" so they have a lot of latitude to seek compromise.  If they can't or won't take on this responsibility and lead, then we, as members of the Democratic Party, have the responsibility of finding someone who will.

This post is open for comment!  Please do!

To downloadthe modified template for the "Hear Our Voice" postcards click here.

Here is a different picture to place on the front of your post cards, click here.