RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, one hundred twenty thousand people in Hawaii have no health insurance ("uninsured"), thousands of others often cannot use the health insurance they do have because of high out-of-pocket co-payments and deductibles ("underinsured"); and, the numbers are growing; and

WHEREAS, a large number of people and families with adequate or good health insurance see cost increases each year, which often require higher premiums, and individuals who cannot afford the premium increases, have to opt for fewer services and benefits or higher co-pays and deductibles; and

WHEREAS, these problems contribute to Hawaii's descent from once having the best health insurance coverage in the nation to now having well over eleven per cent either uninsured or underinsured; and

WHEREAS, the increasing number of uninsured and underinsured residents is seen as a developing health coverage crisis for Hawaii's people and businesses, and the State of Hawaii's rising health care pay-outs; and

WHEREAS, in the 1970s, both the United States and Canada were considering universal health care; although Canada's Parliament adopted universal healthcare, and the United States Congress narrowly missed passing it; and

WHEREAS, the annual per capita health care costs, which were $3,000 each in the United States and Canada in the 1970s, continued to rise in the United States to a per capita cost of $4,200; and

WHEREAS, on the other hand, Canada's single-payer universal health care system brought the $3,000 per capita cost from the 1970s down to $2,000 per year while extending middle-class-quality health insurance to all Canadians; and

WHEREAS, today, Canada's total per capita health care cost is about nine per cent of its gross domestic product, while the United States' cost is approaching sixteen per cent of its gross domestic product -- even though forty-five million Americans are uninsured and millions of others are underinsured and, for all practical purposes, often cannot use the insurance they do have because of high out-of-pocket costs; and

WHEREAS, a recent national Canadian poll asking who is the nation's the most respected person found that individual to be the man given credit for leading the way to Canada's national single-payer health system; and

WHEREAS, all other modern, advanced nations have a universal health care plan that more efficiently delivers health care to all their citizens at a cost, on average, that is almost half of what we in the United States pay with our uneven and fragmented health care delivery system; and

WHEREAS, a universal health care system avoids the higher costs associated with United States health care caused by:

(1) Unneeded layers of bureaucracy;

(2) Extra marketing costs; and

(3) Overlapping extra medical coverages and premiums; and

WHEREAS, Canada's and many other countries' universal health care systems completely eliminate "medical bankruptcies," which are a very common form of bankruptcies in Hawaii and the United States, occurring when a person loses everything due to a medical catastrophe such as highly expensive cancer treatments; and

WHEREAS, recent labor disputes, in Hawaii and all across the nation, have been exacerbated by high (and rising) health care costs, disrupting our lives and our communities even further; and

WHEREAS, putting all citizens in a "one risk pool," as a universal health system does in other modern industrialized countries, also prevents "cherry picking" -- separating out the healthier from the more ill (and more expensive) patients; and

WHEREAS, a universal system prevents the charging of very high health insurance premiums to a separate, less healthy, more expensive group, and prevents the escalation of health costs caused by "cherry picking" of the more healthy, less expensive patients in the fight for market share; and

WHEREAS, a single-payer universal health system like Canada's uses the existing medical infrastructure, but extends access to health care to everyone, stabilizes finances to hospitals, etc. by making global budgeting possible; and

WHEREAS, every person goes to a private doctor or clinic of one's own choice, and doctors are free to practice medicine as they see fit for their patients -- without insurance bureaucrats looking over their shoulders; and

WHEREAS, since Canada's universal health system has its roots at the province (state) level, Hawaii has the opportunity to help start the United States in the direction of a system of Medicare-for-all based on Canada's universal single-payer health care system; and

WHEREAS, working groups of knowledgeable persons studying this issue in Hawaii have found that there are more than enough health care dollars in Hawaii to fund a universal system here; and

WHEREAS, historically, the conditions of medical practice in the United States have been very similar to Canada's, and it is highly desirable that Hawaii move to a quality, efficiently run, and demonstratively less costly universal single-payer healthcare system; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the Senate of the Twenty-Third Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2005, the House of Representatives concurring, that the Legislature is requested to create a joint legislative committee that is requested to:

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the joint legislative committee is requested to report any findings and recommendations, including proposed legislation, to the Legislature not later than twenty days before the convening of the Regular Session of 2006; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Concurrent Resolution be transmitted to the President of the Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Chairs of the Senate and House Committees on Health, the Insurance Commissioner, and the Director of Labor and Industrial Relations.

Report Title:

Universal Health Care