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Kokua Line June Watanabe |
Increased fees make
vehicle renewals higherQuestion: My 2004 registration renewal for my truck shows the fee has gone up from $116 to $147 since last year. The renewal form says "the total payable amount includes a plate replacement fee for your 14-year-old license plate." I was told the license plate has to be replaced for whatever reason, but the replacement fee comes out to $31.55. I doubt that the plates cost that much to replace. What's going on?
Answer: The city is retiring license plates beginning with the letter "E" because, after 14 years, they have lost their reflectivity. Because they can't be read at night and appear dark gray during the day, that makes them liable for citation as defaced plates. But it only costs $5 to replace them.
You're mainly paying more because of increased fees, said Dennis Kamimura, administrator of the city's Motor Vehicle and Licensing Division.
He cited the Highway Beautification Fee as increasing to $5 from $3.75, effective Aug. 1, 2003; and the county weight tax increasing to $0.02 from $0.0124 a pound for passenger vehicles and to $0.025 from $0.02 a pound for commercial vehicles, effective March 1, 2004.
Kamimura suggested you compare the fees for each category between last year and this year.
If you still have questions, contact any satellite city hall or call the motor vehicle office at 532-4325 with your license plate number, and someone will provide the comparison amounts for each category, he said.
Q: I am an HMSA 65C Plus member. I would like clarification of this statement by Cliff Cisco in an article in the May 30 Star-Bulletin regarding the Medicare discount card: "HMSA 65C Plus members who want another drug discount card must drop out of the health plan, also according to Medicare rules."
Does this mean that if I selected a different Medicare discount card, other than 65C Plus, I would be dropped from the 65C Plus health plan? Or, does it mean that I can still belong to 65C Plus and use a different Medicare discount card as long as I don't use both cards?
A: If you use another discount card, you'd have to disenroll from HMSA's 65C Plus plan.
The issue is confusing and has resulted in numerous inquiries to HMSA, acknowledged Cisco, HMSA's senior vice president.
He explained that when Congress passed the Medicare Modernization Act, it imposed several rules governing eligibility for a drug discount card.
Medicare beneficiaries are limited to enrolling in only one approved card at a time.
"HMSA applied to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for, and was approved as, an exclusive card provider," he said. HMSA, thus, provides its own Medicare-approved card, at no cost, only to 65C Plus members.
"A Medicare beneficiary enrolled in an exclusive card (like 65C Plus) may elect to enroll in another approved card but is required by (the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) to disenroll from the exclusive plan before being permitted to enroll in the new approved card," Cisco said.
Call HMSA at 948-6000 if you still have questions.
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Call 529-4773, fax 529-4750, or write to Kokua Line,
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Honolulu 96813. As many as possible will be answered.
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