Hawaii Medical Service Association’s claim that its recent return to profitability is due in part to new payment models cannot possibly be true (“HMSA and Kaiser both post profit in quarter,” Star-Advertiser, Nov. 16).
HMSA started a limited pilot program in April, paying primary-care doctors a fixed monthly rate per patient, but it is too soon to know if the model can save any money.
The new payment model does require primary-care practices to invest in advanced computerization and more staff to cope with increased documentation and reporting requirements, increasing overhead costs. We don’t yet know if the model can generate savings to offset these costs.
However, there is mounting evidence that the administrative demands of the model are driving many Hawaii doctors out of independent practice and causing them to limit acceptance of new patients.
HMSA has increased our employer group premiums by 110 percent over the past 10 years, and by 12.5 percent since 2015. Higher premiums have much more to do with HMSA’s return to profitability this year than new payment models.
Stephen Kemble, M.D.
Makiki Heights
Retired lawyer gives back to community
Michael Tsai’s column on attorney Willson (Willy) Moore was spot on (“Cleanup no big deal to ex-lawyer,” Star-Advertiser, Incidental Lives, Nov. 15).
He embodies all that is good in our local culture. I remember him helping me and other younger lawyers navigate the legal landscape with wisdom and humor. It is no surprise that he anonymously and humbly is still helping his community.
Bill McCorriston
Kakaako
Nothing to fear from Trump presidency
Reading the Sunday Star-Advertiser articles on the Trump election was enough to make one want to hide under the bedcovers (“The great unknowns,” Star-Advertiser, Nov. 13).
As noted, minorities fear for their lives, intimidation and hostility is rampant on campuses, millions face deportation, more millions could lose health care, the environment could be ruined and the republic could end.
Missing from the near-panic was the understanding that the system, devised by those smart Founders who invented the Electoral College to protect the minority from the dictatorship of the majority, provides checks and balances to prevent the imagined chaos.
President Barack Obama learned this when attempting, with his “pen and phone,” to rule by executive actions and bureaucratic agency directives. Blatant misuse of administrative prerogatives was met with the expected congressional, state and judicial resistance.
President-elect Donald Trump, more pragmatist than ideologue, recognizes that a level of cooperation is needed for a successful presidency. Fear not. As he says, he is a deal maker.
Tom Freitas
Hawaii Kai
Private sector can lift struggling economy
The ongoing protests against a pending Donald Trump presidency underscore what should be central to the Trump agenda: action focused on the growing divide between our teeming and struggling urban centers and the rest of the country.
The volume and scope of the needs in our inner cities have created a vision of hopelessness for many. The new president must provide the answer to his question as candidate Trump: “What have you got to lose?”
After decades of deepening social and economic inequality, costly government programs have grown a web of dependency that is politicized and demands program growth despite program failure. But the Trump administration cannot simply off-ramp government programs.
Trump must empower the private sector and nonprofit interests into arrangements in which society and government share authority and responsibility to deliver enduring solutions to housing, education, opportunity and security problems in our struggling cities. Such an approach could serve us well here in Hawaii.
John Hansen
Waipahu
Right-wing leader on trial for hate speech
It is interesting to note that in the Netherlands a far-right leader, Geert Wilders, is on trial for hate speech and incitement of violence. In America, we choose instead to elevate such an individual to the highest office in the land.
Susan Salm
Kailua
Conservatives were poor losers, too
In regards to Carl Bergantz’s characterization of protesters on the left (“Protesters on left are poor losers,” Star-Advertiser, Letters, Nov. 16), I am incredulous at his apparent amnesia.
Effigies of President-elect Barack Obama were hung from trees, and people of color were attacked physically and verbally for wearing Obama shirts.
It is amazing to me how conservatives maintain their level of cognitive dissonance that allows them to project their own weaknesses onto their opponents.
Whether it was Purple Heart winner John Kerry being labeled a “coward” by AWOL supporters of George W. Bush, or the charges of Obama’s weakness on foreign policy during a period of time that he took us from international laughingstock to serious and purposeful inter- national leadership.
It really is astounding. I doubt that this ilk can even spot the irony in Confederate flag-waving Donald Trump supporters telling the left to “get over your loss.”
Mike Sullivan
Kapolei
Give new leaders a chance to lead
Our great country has voted. Since the national election on Nov. 8, I have listened to patients and staff; some cry, and many are elated.
Let’s set our priorities in life straight. Do we wake up in the morning and feel good? Do we have loving family and a roof overhead? Some may, some may not. Let’s give our new leaders a chance to lead. The least we can do is keep an open mind and give the new administration a chance.
Joyce H. Cassen, M.D.
Aina Haina
