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POSTED: Tuesday, March 09, 2010

Keep coquis out of Manoa

Your excellent neighborhood coverage of Manoa included the presence of coqui frogs deep in the valley (”;5-way stop safety, noisy frog,”; Star-Bulletin, March 7). Manoa could be paradise for coquis and hell for us residents.

I suggest that a Manoa institution, the College of Tropical Agriculture, immediately adopt its No. 1 priority to:

» Identify the coqui's favorite foods.

» Modify existing small-animal traps to become coqui traps.

» Release the trap design rights to private industry (thereby creating jobs).

» Describe the most humane method of dispatching caught coquis.

Letters from the Big Island describe coqui hell. Let's quickly devise a means to keep Manoa a quiet, coquiless heaven.

 

 

               

     

 

 

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Make everyone pay to visit Pali

Let's see: The kamaaina think the best way to pay for parks is to put a fee of $3 on parking at Pali Lookout on the tourists only. Big surprise there. Aloha spirit?

You take a plane to Hawaii and pay taxes and fees. You stay at a hotel and pay taxes and fees. You rent a car to drive around the island and pay taxes and fees for the car and gas. What is your reward for doing this? You get to pay a $3 fee to park at the Pali Lookout for 10 minutes.

I will be back again in December for three months and would like to see everyone paying this $3 fee or have it removed, or lowered to $1.

I'm a disappointed longtime visitor.

 

Real tsunami is national debt

As I sit in the dark writing this letter, the tsunami alert siren is blaring in the background. Local news commentators are breathlessly outlining the details of disaster preparedness. The state seems to be doing its job of warning and preparing for an imminent threat. I wish I could say the same about the performance of our national government regarding a substantially larger threat.

The threat I'm talking about is the impending national debt and entitlement tsunami. It began building with the foundation and expansion of the New Deal and the Great Society entitlement programs, Social Security and Medicare, and it has gained in size and momentum with the financial collapse of 2008. The unfunded obligation for these programs is over $50 trillion, much more if you count other entitlement programs.

It is an undeniable fact that our economy will not be able to pay this bill, and yet our politicians press on with ever-expanding spending programs—the totally unaffordable health care legislation being just one.

The political parties are playing a game of musical chairs, each hoping to be able to blame the other on the day that the fiscal tsunami arrives—but being on the right side, politically, will be of small comfort when our economy lies in ruins and everything we care about, from living standards to political freedoms, is devalued.

 

Photovoltaic will not be sufficient

In Sen. Fred Hemmings' “;Island Commentary”; screed against undersea cable, he posits rooftop photovoltaic energy as an alternative (”;Undersea cable a multibillion boondoggle,”; Star-Bulletin, March 1).

Having lived in a photovoltaic house for a couple of years, off the grid, it can be said this is a non-solution.

Photovoltaic requires bright sunlight to work; there is half the time when the sun is not available, plus cloudy days, which would leave such a house without power. In the house where I lived, photovoltaic, plus large volume storage, still required a generator from time to time.

Also, if such a homeowner wanted 110v AC, instead of the usual 12v DC produced by photovoltaic panels, the demand for electricity would require covering the roof entirely with panels.

In order to provide on-demand electricity to operate things like dishwashers, washers, dryers, air conditioners and other high volume consumptives, there must be a source of power available 24/7.

Hemmings' suggestion simply would reduce power consumption to daytime only, and sunny days at that.

It is vital that Hawaiian Electric Co. and the regulatory agencies continue to envision alternative power sources that do not rely on oil. However, since Hawaii has six islandwide grids, instead of being part of a larger interisland grid, we continue to live in a fragile energy environment.

“;Cheap electricity”; is a concept that is bankrupt. Properly-priced electricity, meaning much more expensive, is the only driver toward energy conservation and energy alternatives to the present coal/oil/trash steam systems.

 

Be careful about insurance rules

One of the issues of health care reform is “;preexisting conditions coverage.”; As bad as it sounds to be refused health care coverage because of a preexisting illness or other medical problem, we should be very careful about preexisting conditions coverage.

Could this mean that a person could wait until after he or she becomes ill to buy insurance?

If this were taken to other types of insurance, it could mean that you would not have to buy home insurance until after your house burned down, or life insurance until after the person died, or auto insurance until after you had an accident.

The politicians should make this issue clearer.

 

Doctor shortage could be looming

In response to my suggestion that the state budget deficit should be addressed by layoffs of state workers, Blaine Fergerstrom proposed laying off doctors and medical professionals as a way of dealing with increased health care costs (”;Let's lay off doctors, not state workers,”; Star-Bulletin, Letters, March 7)

Presumably Mr. Fergerstrom is a state worker, and I hope he is not laid off.

Nonetheless, his retort carries ironic truth. In an article recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (Feb 24, 2120 - Vol 303, No. 8, page 747) the authors found that from 1996 to 2008, practicing American physicians decreased their hours worked per week by 5.7 percent. That decrease in hours worked was the equivalent to laying off 36,000 physicians from the workforce. Between 1995 and 2006 average physician fees (inflation corrected) declined by 25 percent.

The factor that correlated with hours worked was pay—physicians paid less worked fewer hours.

This study has huge implications for health care reform and physician manpower. America could be facing a physician shortage of epic proportions.