Competition bad for health insurance

Your editorial recommends competition in our health insurance exchange, but in fact competition in health insurance is counterproductive ("Fight health costs with competition," Star-Advertiser, Our View, Aug. 5).

The exchange is an individual market, in which a large proportion of the population has known health risks due to pre-existing conditions, age, etc.

The overriding financial incentive for competing plans is not to offer a better plan, but to avoid covering sicker people, or to limit paying for their care.

Hawaii has one of the least competitive health insurance markets in the country, the best benefits (thanks to our Prepaid Health Care Act), and among the lowest costs.

More competitive health insurance markets have higher, not lower, costs.

Stephen Kemble
Makiki Heights

Put strict rules on who can access data

Who wants the government knowing everything about them? I sure don’t.

But there’s a big difference between collecting the data about me and using it.

This data is gathered by one machine from another machine. Storing digital bytes about me in some warehouse full of computers doesn’t worry me; a government employee using that data without my knowledge and consent worries me.

So we must place very strict limits on who can use the collected data.

But if we expect national security agencies to protect us by finding a needle in a haystack, they need the haystack.

Lunsford Phillips
Kailua

Taxpayers on hook for UH shenanigans

Here we go again.

The University of Hawaii football program didn’t even get through its first practice without causing more head scratching.It was announced Aaron Price would not be on the coaching staff, with no explanation given.

This coming from a team that is facing another 3-9 season square in the face and continuing to amass debt with no end in sight.

Whatever the reason for Price leaving — health, family or whatever — the taxpayers who are footing Price’s $118,000 salary deserve to know why we are throwing that money away.

It is things like this that make it hard to believe the UH football team will ever be taken seriously as a BCS-type team. No wonder it can’t sell tickets.

It sure would be nice to account for that $118,000. Maybe the interim president will ask the athletic director that question, following his vow to restore trust and transparency.

But somehow I think not.

Gregory Poole
Mililani

Not all Democrats playing by the rules

David Shapiro tries to recast the complaint filed by Michael Golojuch Jr., into a personal vendetta ("Golojuch corrals legislators who stray from party gospel," Star-Advertiser, Volcanic Ash, July 31). Nothing could be further from the truth.

The complaint has the full support of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Caucus of the Democratic Party of Hawaii, which has worked for decades to have marriage equality part of the state platform and keep it a forefront issue.

However, party rules do not allow a caucus to file a complaint. A complaint must be filed by an individual. Therefore, Golojuch stepped forward as the current caucus chair and as a constituent of Sen. Mike Gabbard and Sharon Rep. Har.

For decades, the caucus has worked to get marriage equality included in the platform using the party rules by proposing resolutions at the county and state conventions.

We played by the rules; the complaint asks those Democrats named therein to do the same.

Jo-Ann M. Adams
Former chairwoman, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Caucus Democratic Party of Hawaii

Don’t fix budget on backs of seniors

Proposals to slash Social Security benefits — including a chained consumer price index that would reduce annual cost-of-living adjustments — would hurt our seniors.

Social Security benefits are not unearned entitlements or government charity, but economic and social rights earned by Americans through lifelong contributions and sacrifice.

No one, including our president, has the right to deny them these earned benefits, no matter how bad our economy has been mismanaged.

Rather than balance our budget on the backs of our seniors, there are better ways: cuts and adjustments to corporate welfare, farm bill subsidies and oil industry support, and ending drug price-fixing by pharmaceutical companies, for instance.

Also, change the outrageous tax laws that allow multi-billion-dollar offshore tax shelters and tax evasion.

Francis M. Nakamoto
Moanalua Valley

Speeches won’t help U.S. economy

Faced with one major policy disaster after another, President Barack Obama has only his oratory skills to rely on.

His emotionally driven, tear-jerking presentations have been effective in allying voters through deception. The president’s aim has been to leave the public with the notion that he is a Washington outsider, not one in any way responsible for the sad state of affairs the country is in.

He blames a Bush-created sick economy dropped in his lap, a do-nothing Congress and those bad Republicans who get in the way of his goal to bringEuropean-style socialism to America. His reliance on blameful rhetoric as a substitute for governing has left him with the image of a leader disconnected from the public.

Obama’s sophomoric view of the office of the presidency will leave him a legacy short of honor.

Alfred Freitas Jr.
Maunalani Heights