Four candidates for governor showed up for the recent PBS-Hawaii debate, but the 800-pound gorilla of Hawaii politics was missing.

There was a lively thrust and parry about one of the state’s most serious and unresolved issues: health care on the neighbor islands.

The state hospital system is running out of money. There has already been one round of layoffs and another is envisioned.

Public workers are losing their jobs, services are being cut back, and becoming seriously ill on Maui, Kauai or Hawaii for many means being sent to Oahu for care.

Independent candidate and former Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann, who has the most detailed position on what to do about the Hawaii Health Systems Corp., asked Democratic candidate state Sen. David Ige why he didn’t do something about this.

"The Democratic majority in the Legislature, bowing to pressures within the party, has failed to act," Hannemann said in his issue paper on the problem.

Ige shot back that, he knew about the problem and has been on it since way back when he was Health Committee chairman.

"I did pass a measure that restructured the hospital system and the boards. It does have the opportunity for transition to public-private partnership. I got consensus and I moved it forward," Ige said.

Well, that was five years ago and even Ige had to admit that back then, no private partners wanted to play.

The GOP candidate, former Lt. Gov. James "Duke" Aiona then went after Ige because there was a new bill stalled during the recent legislative session that would have sped along some sort of process to help the hospitals by making it easier to transfer the state hospitals to a private system.

"You were chair of the most powerful committee in the Legislature; if anyone wants to move a bill you can," said Aiona. "You never moved this — why did you not see the urgency in this issue?"

Ige came back saying, "It is obvious that those around the table don’t know how the Legislature really works."

Ige then launched into a tedious lecture on the committee system and rules about conference committees and the votes needed to pass bills out of committee.

Instead of a civics lesson, all Ige needed to say was, "800-pound gorilla, end of story."

That would be the Hawaii Government Employees Association. Randy Perreira, HGEA executive director, boasted at the public employee union’s annual conference this year that he killed the bill and that was that.

"Is HGEA responsible for the failure of that bill to advance? Yes, and I am damn proud to admit that," Perreira told his union members.

Warming up to the topic, Perreira blasted the HHSC board, calling them "a bunch of jokers who don’t know how to manage a hospital system."

"People who look to sell out jobs from under us, people who look to outsource our services, people who look to deny us what we have earned, try to cut our wages, and keep us down, I have a very simple two-word reaction: ‘ —- you," he said (http://goo.gl/MnPMzR).

For the candidates for governor, there really wasn’t anything more to talk about.

The HGEA is not running for governor, but for those who are, how they will specifically address the HGEA and the power of the public unions is still an unanswered debate question.

Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.