Legislature should expand mental-health care coverage
Hawaii prides itself on its prepaid health-care system, which mandates private health-care coverage for employees. Unfortunately, only a minimal amount of mental-health treatment is included.If a person has a mental illness, he or she needs adequate treatment to enjoy recovery, just as a person who has any other illness. Arbitrary limits on mental-health care and treatment should be abolished.
Parity in mental-health coverage is especially important for employees. Untreated or inadequately treated mental illness can result in unemployment, financial problems, homelessness and other costly results. The ultimate cost of poor mental-health coverage is to taxpayers when the person whose insurance coverage is exhausted or who loses his or her insurance must turn to state facilities for treatment.
Parity is not just good health-care policy, it is good government policy. The Legislature should enact Senate Bill 2346 relating to insurance, to expand mandated mental-health benefits, so that equal insurance coverage can be attained incrementally and with minimal expense.
Randolph Hack
Executive Director, United Self-Help
Dems' campaign 'reform' is really double standard
Lloyd T. Nekoba's spins are becoming fairy tales (Letters, March 19). His candidate, Ben Cayetano, already has over $2 million in his campaign fund, and with this new spending "reform," he wants to chop Linda Lingle off at the knees. She has only about $350,000.Of course Lingle's had to solicit mainland donors. Wouldn't Nekoba's candidate do the same if the local donors' market were closed? Furthermore, this closure is not at all due to desire and political conscience, but because of the realities of an incumbent's political retribution in a tight-knit town such as ours.
It's also amazing that Nekoba insinuates that mainland contributions are tainted, when his party's own congressional representatives are bulging with mainland lobbyists' money.
Gene Dumaran
We hear a lot about the negative things a lottery can influence --how it is unfair to the poor, as they waste their money on the impossible odds for success in winning, etc. Lotteries benefit
the public—elsewhereBut lottery money can and is being used to provide the possibility for all children to get a college education.
The New Mexico Lottery Success Scholarship Program was established by the New Mexico legislature from lottery revenues. This scholarship was intended to make higher education possible for New Mexico high school graduates who plan to attend post-secondary institutions in the state.
The Lottery Success Scholarship was intended by law to provide public funds for up to 100 percent of a student's tuition, but not more than 100 percent. The amount of the reward may vary dependent on the amount of funds received from the Lottery Tuition Fund and the number of eligible recipients. Scholarship awards only apply to tuition costs.
For students to be eligible they must be a New Mexico resident and have graduated from a public high school, an accredited private high school, or have obtained a New Mexico GED.
They must be enrolled full-time, at an eligible New Mexico public college or university, in the first regular semester immediately following their high school graduation. They must obtain a 2.5 (out of a 4.0 scale) GPA during their first college semester.
Eligible students do not begin receiving the award until their second semester of full-time enrollment, provided that all eligibility requirements have been met. Based upon their satisfactory academic progress and other factors, a student may be eligible for up to eight consecutive semesters of support.
This program is offered regardless of the family financial status.
We don't seem to have much social outcry against Hawaii's citizens flying to Vegas to spend their money foolishly "out of state." I think it's time for some of this foolish money to be spent in state and for the education of Hawaii's children, not Vegas's children.
Their education costs are going down, ours are going up. Please tell me again the social good of this.
Francis Steele
Kailua
(Via the Internet)
Hirono is hard-working, active lieutenant governor
In his March 27 letter, Richard Rice says the Office of Lieutenant Governor has a budget of $2 million. Nonsense. Our office has just a handful of employees, supplemented by volunteers. Rice must have erroneously included in his figure the cost of the Office of Elections, the Campaign Spending Commission and the Commission on the Status of Women, which are only administratively attached.Far from doing little, the lieutenant governor is doing much. She headed the Governor's Task Force on Science and Technology and the Workers Compensation Task Force, producing new ways to achieve economic diversity and slashing workers' compensation costs by $100 million this year and next.
She heads the Governor's Advisory Committee on Airline Relations, supporting tourism-boosting visa waivers for Asian travelers and exploring public-private partnerships for new investment in airline operations here. She's also a strong advocate for Hawaii's School-to-Work program.
Hawaii's people get more than their money's worth from Lt. Gov. Mazie Hirono.
Marian E. Tsuji
Chief of Staff
Office of the Lieutenant Governor
People with disabilities face much discrimination
The concept of cutting the Commission on Persons with Disabilities is totally outrageous. Although the Hawaii community as a whole has taken great leaps over the years to increase the role of participation among people with challenges, the goal of full access has not been obtained.The work of this agency needs to continue -- hopefully not forever, since the actual goal of this office is to eventually phase itself out when the community no longer denies access to persons with disabilities.
Until that time comes, the commission is an important, quiet player in our road to equal access.
Nora Feuerstein
Paint balls are not all fun and games
A polite request to the individual or individuals shooting at city buses and homes in Mililani (or anything else for that matter) with paint balls: Please knock it off!Aside from the obvious moral/civil point of view, this is a really bad idea for a prank. You might decide to shoot at a home one day, and someone inside might decide to shoot back -- but it might NOT be with a paint ball gun.
I can also assure you that if a cop sees you taking aim at anything, he or she will NOT take the time to ask if your gun shoots paint balls or real ammunition before shooting at you.
We have sanctioned areas set aside for our sport. Use them, and stop tarnishing the image of a good sporting game.
Rodney Neill
Gary K. Hashimoto
Island Paintball Sports Inc.
Laila Twigg-Smith united artists and art lovers
Hawaii's visual arts community is diminished with the passing of Laila Twigg-Smith. As a teacher at the Honolulu Academy of Arts, director of the Contemporary Arts Center at the News Building and founder of The Contemporary Museum, Laila devoted her talent and energy to the service of others, forgoing her own promising career as an artist.For more than 20 years, she brought artists, art and art patrons together -- an enormous, sustained effort. Laila was instrumental in the development of many well-known local artists, often acquiring their best early work for the Advertiser Collection.
I am one of the artists indebted to Laila. Her support imparted legitimacy, making it easier to continue in art. Her leadership in Hawaii's art community will be sorely missed.
Jay Wilson
Kihei, Maui
Lee Donahue would make outstanding police chief
The search for a Honolulu police chief compels me to suggest an HPD lieutenant I met 23 years ago. His name was Lee Donahue, and he is now the acting police chief.I was amazed and impressed by the sincere respect he gave to me, when I was just a 20-year-old kid. Donahue is in the position he is today because of his police skills, leadership qualities, service to his community and, yes, timing! He is a cop's cop.
Lee Donahue is the right person for the right job at the right time, and it does not get any better than that.
Bob Iinuma
Waipahu
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