A small group of health care reform supporters gathered at Magic Island Beach Park Saturday to urge lawmakers to implement universal Medicare in Hawaii.

The federal health insurance program is currently available only to people who are 65 years old and over, disabled or diagnosed with end-stage renal disease. A comprehensive single-payer system would cover all, with financial issues handled by a single public or quasi-public agency and patients free to choose their private doctors and hospitals.

Local supporters said Medicare as it exists, with plans offered by multiple health insurers, is too complex and inefficient.

“It’s a fragmented business,” said Dr. Stephen Kemble, an Oahu psychiatrist. “You have all these different competing plans, each of which has their own administrative rules, their own network, their own benefits … and it’s becoming impossible to deal with.”

Kemble said the hassles are one reason for Hawaii’s doctor shortage.

One of the rally speakers, Maui psychiatrist Dr. Leslie Gise, is the Hawaii representative of Physicians for a National Health Program, a national group advocating for a universal, comprehensive single-payer national health program. Gise said she left her private practice to work for the state because patients often couldn’t afford to pay her.

She believes Medicare works, it just needs to be expanded.

Dr. Maya Maxym, a pediatric hospitalist on Oahu, also expressed frustration with the current system that often requires her to haggle with insurance companies to authorize treatments.

“I’m tired of filling out unnecessary paperwork and spending hours and hours of my time in front of the computer and on the phone to try to make things happen for my patients, which sacrifices my time at home with my family and my ability to self-care,” she said.

Rally organizers said the event was scheduled to coincide with the legislative session. Although the group is not proposing any bills, they said many lawmakers who were elected last year expressed support for universal Medicare.