Hard workers have hard time

The question is, "Where does it all stop"?

I am a small general contractor employing about 10 people. I recently received notice from Kaiser Permanente regarding a rate increase. A single policy went from $149 to $558 per month! It cited Obamacare as well as "pricing policy by age" as the culprits. 

I personally pay $1,800 per month for my family. That equates to about $418/week from a family’s take-home pay, if they have   to buy insurance. An argument could easily be made that the state of our health care system is looking an awful lot like extortion.

The answer to my initial question is: "It never will." It will never stop. 

We are turning this country into one of dependency on the government rather than success through hard work. There is little to no support for those of us who provide for so many families. 

Our leaders have chosen to find ways to assess those who took risks in favor of redistribution of wealth. 

I pray for my kids’ future. 

Rex Cornair
Kaneohe

Gift of canoe was admirable

I was touched by the Sunday article about the very generous gift of Tony and Kim Allard — giving back the koa canoe bought on the East Coast to the Vredenburg descendants here ("’Overwhelming’ gift," Star-Advertiser). 

The Allards did the pono thing at considerable financial cost to themselves. The giving to family members and the restoration of the canoe to its traditional ocean uses are right. The Allards showed a selfless generosity and sensitivity to local culture we don’t often see.

Jane Wylie
Makiki

VA simply needs more physicians

The coverage your paper gave to the news conference with the Hawaii head of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs was enlightening and highlights the problems of this organization. 

The caseload of 1,300 for seven full-time equivalents is ludicrous. No physician in the private sector could handle this with any competence.

What was interesting in the article was a solution to the problem. 

Wayne Pfeffer has a staff of 955 on Oahu to support these physicians. I suspect that all they do is generate paperwork to keep their jobs. A massive cut in this number would provide money to hire physicians.

This is no doubt a simple solution for a government out of control, but I am not optimistic that our elected representatives will agree. They prefer to complicate the problem by building a new facility with no requirements of service standards or physician staffing.

Ed Gencarelli
Kailua

Cayetano has no right to grumble

Ben Cayetano is crowing over the settlement of his lawsuit against Pacific Resource Partnership, but the PRP attacks told the truth about his acceptance of an illegal campaign contribution and his failure to return the money, which was ethically wrong. 

Where was Cayetano when a truly scurrilous campaign was mounted against Cec Heftel that probably cost him the Democratic nomination for governor in favor of John Waihee, who went on to win the general election with Cayetano as his running mate? The culprits were never found, but it’s safe to say they were acting at the behest of Democratic power brokers.

Cayetano, of course, went on to win the governorship twice — while keeping a tainted contribution and claiming he had clean hands.

Carl H. Zimmerman
Salt Lake

Smear adviser on Schatz’s staff

Reading the article on Pacific Resource Partnership’s smear campaign, it was sad to see the PRP consultants, such as Andy Winer, who is now Brian Schatz’s chief of staff, trash the character of Ben Cayetano, one of the most decent public officials in Hawaii ("Anti-Cayetano notes surface," Star-Advertiser, June 20).

Cayetano attorney James Bickerton is quoted as saying: "They bring a level of nastiness and falsity that could really change the climate here."

The "nastiness and falsity" is apparently continuing in the current campaign for U.S. Senate: According to Colleen Hanabusa’s campaign, Schatz’s campaign is trying to scare voters by sending letters to senior citizens falsely insinuating that Hanabusa may be open to privatizing Social Security. 

One would hope we will learn from this sordid episode and get the message that character counts in our politicians and in the people they hire to get them elected.

Peter Knerr
Kailua