A family's desperate plea for Patient's Bill of Rights

Recently, the Patient's Bill of Rights has been in the news for good reason. The purpose of the bill is to hold insurance companies accountable for their decisions and actions that show bad faith towards their insured.

As I write this letter, my 18-year-old daughter suffers from a rare degenerative bone disease called Idiopathic Condylar Resorption. This disease is slowly destroying her lower jaw. As time progresses, the jaw actually is shrinking back, causing an ever-widening gap. Besides the incredible pain, it has caused her to not be able to chew solid food. And according to our physician, a nationally recognized oral surgeon, this "shrinking" may cause suffocation and death.

I am a vice principal in our public schools and belong to the Hawaii Government Employees Association. My wife is a teacher and belongs to Hawaii State Teachers Association. The unions basically offer two carriers, HMSA and Kaiser. We chose HMSA 11 years ago and felt we had the best coverage available in this state. Can you imagine our shock to hear from HMSA that it will not pay for the corrective surgery for this disease?

Through its three letters of denial, HMSA claims to not be liable to pay for anything associated with the joint between her lower and upper jaw, called TMJ. No reasons given, they "just don't." This surgery will cost approximately $50,000. Since we work in the public school system, funds of this magnitude are hard to come by. However, we will not sit by helplessly. We will do whatever it takes to provide for our daughter.

In the meantime, families like ours across Hawaii have been denied benefits by carriers who intimidate by their size and power. They have a way of making average citizens feel powerless to do anything about being wrongfully denied their benefits.

Ellen Goodman, columnist for the Boston Globe, wrote, "It's time to pass this Bill of Rights for the insured. Those of us with health care deserve some tools to deal with the diffident HMO clerk on the other end of the line." I would suggest that the time may be right for a large class-action lawsuit.

Philip Gilbert
Kihei, Maui

Governor was right to veto consent bill

Governor Cayetano's veto of the consent bill was the right decision. My mother was 15 and father 25 when they were "busy" and my oldest sister was born when mom was 16. They got married and lived together for 35 years and had three more kids.

I can't imagine the kind of people who would put my father in prison for 20 years. My mother would have been shattered, and she would have been another statistic -- a single, teenage mother for the right-wing ghouls to harp about. And my other sister, brother and I wouldn't have been on this trip.

I question why people want to punish perfectly natural acts. Do we need more people in prison?

Edwin Corl

[Quotables] "This is the wrong bill. It is a bad bill. And I'm not the only one to think that." Gov. Ben Cayetano, After the state Legislature, convened in a special session, overrode his veto of a bill raising the age of sexual consent from 14 to 16. It was first time in 44 years that a Hawaii governor's veto was overturned. "He's obviously has leadership skills. He's got integrity, and he's very dedicated." Lorraine Akiba, Hawaii Democratic Party chairwoman, on Cal Lee's attractiveness as a political candidate. Lee, the most successful high school coach in Hawaii's history, said last week that this will be his last season as football coach at St. Louis School.

Mayor's vision of Hanauma is distorted

The mayor's Hanauma Bay Improvement Task Force was organized to favorably and forcefully impress everyone concerned with the mayor's vision.

It seemed to all those who objected to his vision that he and his team were looking at a mirage projected on an invisible one-way mirror in which the mayor saw himself as an ecology professor presiding as governor over Hawaii's renovated environment.

Because of the one-way mirror, the outsiders could see in, but the insiders could not see out, or they refused to do so because they were members of his private vision team concerned with handing out government contracts in order to raise campaign funds sufficient to realize the mayor's vision.

David Arthur Walters

HPD's radios may need more antennae

Regarding the problem of the Honolulu Police Department's radio system: In converting from the old analog to the new digital system, I will bet that no attention was given to the re-siting of new antenna locations to provide expanded coverage in the problem areas, namely the valleys, around hills and high-rises.

The digital signal behaves differently from the analog. Where the analog signal would fade out gradually at the marginal signal areas, the digital signal would cut out immediately, and you've lost communications. Why weren't improved antenna locations studied and proposed?

With Oahu's terrain, even 75 percent coverage would be difficult to attain. A new state-of-the-art portable is not going to help you if the signal is not there.

I admit new antenna locations are not easily resolved what with the obligatory EIS process, NIMBY objections and the availability of commercial and emergency power. In the end, the bottom line mattered the most and HPD has to accept a junky radio system.

Leonard K. Chun

Only higher gas prices will bring conservation

Your June 22 editorial asserted, "The real world, however, is demanding a more fuel-efficient product."

Yeah, right. In the real "real world," few people have the financial means to simply scrap their current car and rush out to buy a new one, no matter how fuel-efficient. Detroit (or Japan or Germany) could magically increase the fuel efficiency of their products overnight and it wouldn't make a difference.

Given the strong sales of SUVs and trucks over the past decade (now reaching almost 50 percent of all new car sales) America has clearly forgotten the lessons of the last real energy crisis, so when polls indicate the people prefer con- servation over increased fuel production, that's clearly hypocritical, live-for-the-moment baloney. How many of those self-proclaimed conservationists drive an SUV? That is a follow-up question the pollsters forget to ask.

In the real Hawaii we have been living with higher gas prices than the rest of America and yet people continue to buy gas-guzzling trucks, SUVs and minivans.

Still, you can't force any industry to make only certain types of products. Freedom of choice means the freedom to buy any kind of car you want. The only way to instill a permanent sense of conservation in people is to raise the price of gas to $3 or $4.

Then, and only then, will people really think about the kind of car they drive.

James Ko

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