Letters: 2-19-16

Insurers should help addiction battle

Thank you for re-printing the commentary “Helping drug addicts is finally politically feasible” in the Feb. 8 edition. It is encouraging that politicians are at long last recognizing that addiction has profound implications, not only for the individual addict, but on families, communities and our society as a whole.

The gravity and scope of the issue can not be underestimated, and it is sobering to consider that more people now die from drug overdose than automobile accidents. While this topic may have traction with voters and politicians, the unfortunate reality is that quality residential substance abuse treatment is, by and large, inaccessible to those who need it because their health insurance denies them appropriate care. Working in this industry, I see this almost daily. People who want help with their addiction and have health insurance, are denied the treatment they need.

A few years ago, the Mental Health Parity Act was passed into law, ensuring that mental health disorders, including substance abuse, were afforded equal coverage by health insurers. If you have cancer and the treatment is a three month course of chemotherapy, your health insurer is obliged to cover the recommended course of treatment. By law, the same principle applies to substance abuse treatment. However, in actuality, a person with a longstanding opiate addiction who requires 60 to 90 days of residential treatment to fully recover, may be denied treatment at the appropriate level of care all together, or at best, may only be approved for a few weeks of care. If your insurer told you they would only pay for two weeks of your three-month chemotherapy regime, you would be outraged, rightfully so.

Health insurers are breaking the law and making access to quality substance abuse treatment more difficult all the time. Stump speeches about the scourge of addiction may certainly heighten awareness about the issue, but health insurance companies are a significant part of the problem and they need to be held accountable for their illegal practice of denying and restricting care to those who desperately need it.

Eliza Wille MS

Program Director, Hawaii Island Recovery

Holualoa

Soliciting donations then closing wrong

I am very sad with what has happened with the Amy B.H. Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden. To think of the financial support and land donation that Amy Greenwell provided to Bishop Museum, and then to have them just turn their back on her memory. Back in November, Bishop pushed me to renew my annual membership to Amy Greenwell by adding three additional months to our membership. During their pitch, they failed to mention that the garden would be closing in January or even that a potential closure was being discussed. It appears to me that Bishop solicited donations with regards to Amy Greenwell fully knowing that its closure was imminent. I don’t know what you call that, but I call it fraud.

According to the most recent financial statements on Bishop’s website, they received grants for the year of over $1 million from the federal government and around $700 thousand in non-federal grants. So what that means is that our tax dollars of $1 million plus whatever portion of non-federal grants are from the state of Hawaii, go to an organization that has just defrauded the people of Hawaii.

If you are a current or potential financial supporter of Bishop Museum, please reassess whether that organization is deserving of your support. If you are thinking about entrusting Bishop to take care of your donated property, understand that there is a good chance that this organization will sell your donated property.

Please contact Hawaii County’s Prosecuting Attorney, Mitch Roth hilopros@co.hawaii.hi.us, and Hawaii’s Attorney General, Douglas Chin (808) 586-1500, and demand that Bishop be held accountable for their actions. I hope I am wrong but I doubt that Bishop will do the right thing for our island with regards to the sale of the Amy Greenwell and Waipio properties.

David Hill

Captain Cook

Here’s your reef solution

I read with interest about the pollution problems in the Puako area. I have two houses in two different states in the mainland with septic tanks, near large bodies of water.

Rather than wait for the local city and county to install a very expensive sewer treatment system, I have retrofitted my septic systems with an ATU. The cost to retrofit is less than $1,500 (shipping and installation is extra) and the effluent out of the septic system into the septic field is equal to what would come out of a waste treatment system.

Cost to operate the ATU is equivalent to using a 100 watt light bulb. You could order and receive it and have it installed in less than a month. This is a lot quicker than waiting for the county to act and a lot cheaper than any system the county could offer. You could solve your pollution problems in a month. Otherwise the reef will suffer while you talk and talk and talk and wait and wait and nothing gets done.

John Apo

Sebastian, Fla.

Dispensary game for the select few

The future of medical cannabis dispensaries in Hawaii will be about money and only money. The 66 applicants vying to operate them is like reading a who’s who of high rollers, celebrities, lawyers, politicians and the politically connected (“Dispensary applicants named,” West Hawaii Today, Feb. 8).

To think that the selection process could be transparent and fair is a naïve notion. But let’s not blame the applicants for doing what comes naturally (making lots of money). After all, it was our Legislature and the state health department rules that made dispensaries so costly to license, startup and operate. Sealing the deal with only eight state licenses awarded, Legislators guaranteed dispensaries the right to set prices and divide among themselves a projected $65,000,000 in sales in the first year. This all on the backs of sick, many poor, patients.

Small entrepreneurs/growers were snuffed out by the $75,000 licensing fee and the estimated $2-6 million in startup costs. Noting that, it’s not surprising that not one applicant applied as a nonprofit, cooperative or collective where patients could find reasonably priced medicine.

One must question who could conceive of a law so patently harmful to patients? Who were the legislators who were influential in guiding this law to its present outcome? More revealing but harder to pin down, who got what in the backroom deals?

Bottom line, patients won’t be able to afford dispensary prices and will buy from a thriving black market. Disturbingly, this will threaten the small clandestine growers and dealers with greater police scrutiny and enforcement to “protect” the “legal” to the letter dispensaries from the competition that doesn’t follow the “law/rules.”

If caregivers are not restored to the program and patients are prohibited from growing their medicine, the chance for a compassionate medical cannabis program for most Hawaii’s patients will be lost.

Andrea Tischler,

Chairwoman, Big Island Chapter, Americans for Safe Access

Hilo

Escalating fuel surcharge

needs explaining

Why is there a continuing fuel surcharge imposed by many transport, delivery, hauling, and debris removal companies (among others)? This is a relic that dates back to 2008-2013 when fuel prices were skyrocketing to an all-time high. I don’t recall when these fees were first imposed but, since late 2013, fuel prices have continued to fall, reaching their lowest point to date since 2008.

I was recently charged a fuel surcharge amount that was 13 percent over my base invoice! This is now pure excessive profit for the vendors adding fuel surcharges, over and above reasonable built-in profits for their services.

I would encourage all who read this to contact their vendors who charge these excessive fees and either ask for a reasonable explanation, or request an adjustment on current or future invoices.

Finally, I would also encourage news organizations to delve into this issue so that all entities to this travesty are held accountable.

Mike Fromme

Kamuela