Pension funds siphoned away

As a recently retired captain with the Honolulu Fire Department, I would like to add to the discussion about emergency workers and pay spiking.

» Emergency workers do jobs that most people would or could not. The initial and ongoing training is grueling. They are the ones showing up at anytime of day or night to address life and death situations. Emergency responders often live shorter liv1es due to exposure to hazards and work related stress.

» Overtime work is often due to severe understaffing. Overtime work as an emergency responder eats into one’s personal life and comes pre-loaded with additional stress.

» Hawaii emergency responders have always been somewhere in the middle when compared to national pay scales. The cost of living in Hawaii makes any pay shortfall more significant.

» Police and firefighters contribute a significant portion of their salaries (including overtime pay) to the Employee Retirement System.

» ERS funds were illegally siphoned off by state lawmakers in the past, thereby significantly contributing to the current unfunded liability.

Gary Pardy
Haleiwa

Spiking is same as stealing

"Spiking" is obviously a concerted effort by some union members to take advantage of the state retirement system and thus place every other present or future retiree and their families at risk, as all could lose their pension benefits when the state pension system runs out of money, as predicted by economists.

Prisons are full of people who do the same thing, where it is called stealing.

Those people who participated and are gaining benefits from everyone else need to look at their monthly inflated retirement check and be ashamed of themselves.

Greed is greed, even here in Hawaii.

It is time for our legislators to stop this egregious policy now.

Gary R. Johnson
Kaneohe

GOP forgets the real Reagan

The GOP conservative presidential candidates mostly claim they are Reagan Republicans.

However, Ronald Reagan was president of the Screen Actors Guild, a labor union. He supported collective bargaining. He supported Medicare and Social Security. He raised taxes and he voted four times for Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He didn’t say no all the time, nor did he always support a balanced budget.

Reagan was a very effective and civil communicator with a great grasp of politics and history. He opposed fellow Republicans who trashed one another.

Don’t the candidates remember? I do.

Mark Litchman
Moiliili

Reporting rule is not practical

Requiring pharmaceutical and medical device companies to report every single penny spent on physicians is a tremendous waste of resources ("Drugmakers will be told to disclose any payment to physicians," Star-Advertiser, Jan. 17).

The amount of time, personnel and cost to record and maintain such data will be enormous.

Are patients really going to seek this information out every time their doctor prescribes a medication or recommends a certain type of pacemaker?

Most physicians want to prescribe the best drug or device for their patients based on prior experience and sound scientific evidence, not because the pharmaceutical company brings the best coffee and bagels.

As a physician, I can vouch that pharmaceutical companies do not influence my prescribing practice. I leave that to health insurance companies and their "preferred drug" list, which make prescribing anything but a preferred drug nearly impossible and prohibitively expensive for the patient.

Robert Wong
Aiea

Cure recession with spending

Hawaii lawmakers canceled their opening day entertainment and elaborate office parties, as they did two years ago when we were in a recession.

Are they saying that after two years under their leadership we are still in a recession?

If we are, it’s due to a lack of economic activity (i.e. lack of spending).

If the lawmakers are allowed to use campaign funds for their office parties, let them spend.

Also, get the lobbyists to kick in for the entertainment, sushi, poke, mochiko chicken, chow mein, mac salad, etc.

They should follow the lead of President Barack Obama who, even though he is criticized, vacations annually in Hawaii.

We need to spend, spend, and spend some more.

Dennis Kohara
Kaimuki