Wasted money approaches Wonder Blunder status

The people running the Department of Human Services’ Med-Quest Division are causing a great deal of confusion for its 250,000 Quest health insurance members — not to mention wasting a chunk of public funds.

Two mess-ups will end up costing state taxpayers $176,254 in open-enrollment remailings to Quest recipients: The first error neglected to include Kaiser as a health plan option on Oahu and Maui; the second involved some vague problem with noncompliant health-plan marketing, which resulted in cancellation of open enrollment in May and its rescheduling for June 17-28.

Those "in charge" really need to be more careful with our money. After all, the $176,254 lost to this Med-Quest mess comes pretty close to the $200,000 swindled in the University of Hawaii’s "Wonder Blunder" debacle — and look at all the fallout there.

Gun owners deserve an efficient government, too

Considering that Oahu residents have multiple venues for seeking city services (read: satellite city halls), it makes sense that there should be more than one place on the island to go for the gun permits that the Honolulu Police Department issues.

So the resolution sponsored by two of the new arrivals to City Council — Kymberly Pine and Ron Menor — is likely to get strong support from prospective gun purchasers. Many of them complain about the long lines at HPD’s main station, which currently is the sole gun-permit issuer.

Could existing staff, redeployed, handle this, or how much would this cost? Could a permit fee cover any additional expense, and should it? An actual bill, spelling out the particulars, will heat up the discussion, for sure.