Hawaii’s health connector still quite ill

Hawaii may be known these days for winning high marks as a healthy state, but the health insurance exchange agency here is doing poorly, by any measure.

Yet another measure came in recent days from the Transamerica Center for Health Studies. It found that many states at least doubled their enrollment numbers between the first and second months of operation. But the Hawaii Health Connector gained only 26 percent. As we all know, the numbers were low to begin with.

It’s lucky that we don’t have as much ground to make up: The number of uninsured people who are eligible for coverage through the marketplace is just under 90,000, thanks in part to our own Hawaii Prepaid Health Care Act.

King’s Village soon to be a memory

King’s Village Shopping Center, the little retail complex just off Waikiki’s main thoroughfares, retains some of its quirky charm, but its heyday was in another era.

In the 1970s and early ’80s, for example, it used to be a thing to watch the monarchy-era costumed guards march about (that was a part-time gig for young men in high school JROTC programs at the time).

Soon, the village is going to give way to become one of a growing number of "condotel" projects.

There’s more than the nostalgia factor, though. The center was also a low-rise respite in the midst of the concrete jungle, a bit of breathing room that may be tough to preserve. Let’s see what the neighbors have to say.