New health board is off to an uncomfortable start

It is spring, Easter is coming, but what we are really entering is the season of fine print. State taxes, federal taxes — they are all due next month.

If you have kids in high school, it’s time to start filling out the dreaded FAFSA for student loans.

With all that looming, you probably missed one of the greatest fine-print festivals: the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, known  to many as Obamacare, the sweeping reorganization of medical care in the U.S.

Nationally, it is now before the U.S. Supreme Court. Here in Hawaii, one provision within the act is up for implementation.

It is dividing the Legislature and its usual supporters with bitter and angry calls of conflict of interest.

Simply put, the national health plan allows the states to set up their own health plans and devise ways to provide health care for the poor.

To implement the law, Hawaii, along with many other states, has set up what is called a connector board. It is supposed to hook up those without medical insurance with plans specifically designed for the poor. Some have described it as a way for the poor to shop on Amazon for health care coverage.

Well, maybe we should have called in Jeff Bezos, who invented Amazon in 1994, because we seem to be making a hash out of the local plan.

First, critics say that every other state made its connector board a government agency. Hawaii’s Legislature, which appears to be in a frenzy of deregulating public input out of state law, made the state connector board a nonprofit corporation.

“Last year it sailed through under the radar. No one paid attention, until now, that Hawaii just happens to be the only state whose exchange is set up as a nonprofit, exempt from any sunshine requirements,” said Barbara Kim Stanton, state director of the AARP.

The interim board, appointed by Gov. Neil Abercrombie, applied for federal grants, got $14 million in federal funds, hired a director, lawyers and the inevitable computer team.

The problem is that Abercrombie named all the local medical insurance heavyweights to the team. So the folks from HMSA and Kaiser and Hawaii Dental Service would be deciding what plans to sell, whom to sell them to and for how much.

Stanton and others estimate that there could be more than 100,000 people using the connector to find medical insurance and it could bring in up to $300 million.

Last week the permanent board members, the same big insurance reps included, were approved by a Senate committee and appear headed for final confirmation.

At the same time, moving at counter purposes, the House is readying a bill that would forbid insurance reps on the board. The insurance reps could serve as advisers and make recommendations, but not vote.

Imagine if the state decided to set up a hamburger board that would proscribe how many and which hamburgers you could eat.

If the board’s majority was made up of McDonald’s, Burger King and Jack in the Box, any cheeseburger-loving soul would see that as a conflict. Especially if the burger boys set up the ethics rules guiding how the burger commission operated

Stanton calls the Hawaii move “untenable.” Consumers who could get stuck with a conflict-riddled board deciding their insurance future may call it more than that.

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